This is the year 2013. This is Selma, Alabama. Selma is a town where the black citizens live on one side of town, the whites on the other. On the black side, the street is named after a civil rights leader. On the white side, that same street switches names and is dedicated to a ku klux klansman.
Though 80% of the town is African American, the country club is exclusively white. Blacks shop at one grocery store, whites at another. The public schools are filled with black students. The white private school had their first black student in 2008. Confederate flags fly high. 10,000 white people left and started a new town when the first black mayor was elected in 2000. The city council president is a white supremacist. The ku klux klan openly marched, in their robes and all, in front of the civil rights memorial museum in 2010. Abandoned buildings are more common than populated ones. People take less work hours and have more kids so they can stay on welfare.
The only future kids can see is teaching, taking over the family shop, or applying for welfare… If you’re lucky you graduate the college of nursing and get the hell out. Corporal punishment is legal – even in preschools. People do not nurture dreams here, they nurture apathy and animosity.
This is Selma.
When you cross the very bridge where Bloody Sunday took place and drive by Brown Church where Dr. King inspired thousands, you are hopeful. But then you get out of the car and its 1960 again. This town is still living in the world of separate but equal. While the country moved through a whirlwind of human rights improvements and technological advancements, Selma stood still. With their inaction, the people of Selma forgot what words like “dream” and “change” mean. Their hearts were filled with hate and they became blinded by prejudice. This is Selma, and at first glance, it looks hopeless.
But in a small church, on the corner of Selma and Franklin, there is a group of incredible individuals that have managed to find love. Together, they have fought the shackles of Selma. They dance, sing, open their hearts, and love like no one I’ve ever seen. When you talk to these kids (I say kids for even the adults here hang on to the freedom of childhood) you see that they are not afraid to dream. They are not scared to talk about how they can change the world. And they are devoted to being true to themselves at any cost.
When you step foot in the Freedom Cafe, the energy lifts your hearts and the smiles are contagious. Immediately you are driven to share your story because you know someone here will care. And when you allow yourself to open up to your make shift family, you find that you are accepted for everything you are, as well as everything you are not. Because of the unconditional, agape love that is abundant here, you are free in every sense of the word. This is a small haven in the middle of hell. This is a dream that will some day save the world.
This is the Freedom Foundation.
