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One of my first thoughts when I arrived in Montgomery, Alabama, and encountered the spring heat was this: How did enslaved men, women and children endure day after day?
It was an odd thought, given that I'm a Southerner, and heat, certainly not spring heat, wouldn't ordinarily be overwhelming, nor would it lead to thoughts of enslavement. But here, history is heavy, it's immediate, and it's everywhere. And the history that is most on display - in obvious and not-so-obvious ways - is deeply tied to slavery and its enduring aftermath.
The streets here are named for Confederate generals. The state flag - the St. Andrew's crimson cross on a field of white - evokes a Confederate flag. There's a star at the Alabama State Capitol on the spot where Jefferson Davis became President of the Confederate States.
Not a block away, a young Martin Luther King, Jr. and other activists planned the 1955-56 Montgomery Bus Boycott from his basement office at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. On the same street, slave traders once sold women, men and children alongside cows at bustling slave depots.
There is also the Rosa Parks Museum, the Civil Rights Memorial at the Southern Poverty Law Center and many murals commemorating the triumphs of the Civil Rights Movement.
All of this, set off from the Alabama River, where slavers once unloaded people to sell, and music lovers and baseball fans now can take in a concert or a game.
New versus old in Montgomery
It is Alabama's version of progress, featuring a revitalized downtown that has helped put this city on The New York Times list of top destinations to visit in 2018.
I get into a cab and ask the older, Black woman driving me how she likes this new Montgomery.
For her, the new Montgomery can't eclipse the old. She has a story at the ready, recounting how her father, a veteran, tried to buy a house on a certain block.
The local newspaper covered his aspiration with a warning: "Block Going Black."
"That was in 1970," she said.
All of this uniquely American history makes this city a hard and necessary place to visit. And with the April 26 opening of two new venues - The National Memorial...