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- <text id=89TT3044>
- <title>
- Nov. 20, 1989: American Notes:Alabama
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- Nov. 20, 1989 Freedom!
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- NATION, Page 69
- American Notes
- ALABAMA
- Lest We Forget
- </hdr><body>
- <p> There is no more fitting place than Montgomery, Ala., site
- of the epic 1955-56 black boycott to desegregate the bus system,
- to memorialize the nation's decades-long struggle for civil
- rights. Last week 5,000 black and white Americans gathered there
- to dedicate a black granite sculpture engraved with the names
- of 40 particularly unforgettable men, women and children -- an
- honor roll representing the untold numbers of people who have
- died in violent racial confrontations.
- </p>
- <p> Centerpiece of the structure -- conceived by Maya Lin, who
- designed Washington's Viet Nam Veterans Memorial -- is a round
- tabletop, 11 1/2 ft. in diameter. On it, along with the 40
- names, is carved a chronology of major civil rights events, and
- over this flows a thin sheen of water, a symbol of Martin Luther
- King Jr.'s "mighty stream" of righteousness. Said Karen Reeb,
- daughter of a white Unitarian minister who was beaten to death
- after he marched with King in Selma, Ala.: "It just eases the
- emptiness in my heart."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-