In 1988, as a supporter of Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaign, I traveled throughout the South organizing and writing. Selma, AL was one of my stopping points. My schedule put me in the historic town right at the time of the annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee, which commemorates the 1965 march from Selma to Montgomery. (That’s the civil description; I prefer to call it “Bloody Sunday,” which most vividly and accurately describes the event.)

That year’s commemoration also served as an appropriate get-out-the-vote rally for the primary election. The few days I was in Selma were filled with house meetings, campaign meetings, planned meetings with key people, and spontaneous talks on the street with Selma residents.

I visited Brown Chapel AME Church, first standing in the aisle, slowly panning the sanctuary, and then randomly selecting a pew in which to sit. I knew I was on hallowed ground and wondered what it would’ve been like sitting there listening to a Dr Martin Luther King or Rev. James Bevel. Who would’ve been sitting next to me, in front of me? What would we be saying to one another? I conjured up my own interpretation of a 1965 meeting that could have been held in the chapel.