Selma, Alabama to Vicksburg, Mississippi

Selma in the morning, a town that was once a bustling small city, now trying to make something out of what is left - and a lot of brick to work with, on the banks of the Alabama River - along with the fresh histories of the Civil Rights movement.  Have to wish them luck, they'll need it.  Like so many of these town, it is hard to imagine what might happen for them to spring back to life.

On down Hwy 80 past fields, more ragged forestlands with trucks hauling slash pines to a big paper mill, smack in the middle of the Black Belt, a geologic formation that through the coincides of cotton and slavery is now also a sociological description.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Belt_(U.S._region)

To Demopolis, a pretty little town with an interesting history  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demopolis,_Alabama

Motoring on east on Hwy 80, we dodged into Meridian, home of Jimmie Rodgers,the singing brakeman.  More old brick, more potential.  Maybe.

Soon after Meridian, we dropped south through Chunky, near yet another Civil War tragedy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chunky_Creek_Train_Wreck_of_1863) to Hickory,maybe the quietest, in some ways most attractive little town I've seen.

 After Hickory, we drove Hwy 15, up into the forest, surprising and cool on a hot day, with many small, neat houses, folks taking advantage of the cool green.

At the top of the hill, the plainest of churches under tall, full loblolly pines and oaks

and what prompted this, one can only imagine, but there must be interlopers out there among the congregation at their rest.

Winding around the forested hills of Mississippi (who would've thought) through Montrose, Bay Springs, Sylvarena, Pineville, Puckett,

enjoying the unexpected beauty, although this is logging country with trucks coming and going , as well as the signs of things run down and abandoned at every turn.

More wandering around, we finally hit Hwy 18 and rode it up into Jackson, and to the capitol, built in 1901. We think of the south as an impoverished wreck after the Civil War, but most of the brick towns and the capotols in Montgomery and Jackson we all built within 30 years after the war.  Clearly, there was money, or money was made.  The capital in Jackson was built with a million dollars the state received in litigation over back taxes with the Illinois central railroad,so that was northern money.  It is one beautiful buildings,all domes (three) and marble and gold leaf and stained glass.

No stained glass of slaves working cotton fields.

We drove around downtown Jackson, hoping to see signs of the heat Johnny Cash was gonna find, but no luck.  Like Montgomery, some nice buildings but the town dead quiet even at rush hour.  We did happen on an historic bus depot that lifted our spirits at the great courage people had at a time when the south was exceptionally harsh.

Barely a few blocks from the capitol, houses and buildings empty and falling down and children playing in the dirt.

We left Jackson at dusk and drove the thirty or so miles west to Vicksburg, the "Gibraltar of the South" and site of a long siege, now casinos below the bluff, held by big retaining walls.  Not for us, we trundled off to one of the many motels that apparently serve the many gamblers.