Old Cahawba, Dallas County, Ala. Perine Well. 2020. The area now known as Old Cahawba was first occupied by large populations of Paleoindians; then from 1000 to 1500 CE the Mississippian period brought agriculture and mound builders. They welcomed Spanish conquistadors into a walled city with palisades, yet the Afro-Eurasian diseases the explorers brought with them killed thousands of Indigenous people in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The remaining Indigenous peoples were killed or forced to move by an even greater influx of Europeans. By the early nineteenth century, the dirt from the ancient mounds at Cahawba was used to build railroad beds, and the town briefly served as the state capital of Alabama. At the time it was dug in the 1850s, the Perine Well, at seven hundred to nine hundred feet deep, was the second-largest known well in the world, feeding cool water through a system of pipes to “air condition” a twenty-six-room brick mansion. Cahawba became a ghost town shortly after the Civil War, largely due to recurring floods. By the late 1800s, the town site was purchased for $500 and its buildings demolished.

Childersburg, Talladega County, Ala. Sunshine turns soil in the Commons Community Workshop garden. 2020. As a response to national division and the COVID-19 outbreak, Sunshine and her husband Rusty bought a home in downtown Childersburg and created The Commons Community Workshop. Through their Fearless Communities Initiative they have built a community garden in a donated downtown lot, host trade days, and foster relationships with their neighbors as a means of “celebrating solidarity and strength.” The couple invited me to find them on Facebook where Sunshine posts Initiative announcements, vocalizes her opposition to vaccines, and shares her beliefs about global child sex trafficking networks, the threat of Marxism, and the coming of the end times.

Hayneville, Lowndes County, Ala. Beside the former location of Varner’s Cash Store, where Civil Rights activist Jonathan Myrick Daniels was shot to death by Tom Coleman. 2020. Jonathan Myrick Daniels, a white Episcopal seminarian from Keene, NH, had come to Alabama following Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s call for clergy to join the march from Selma to Montgomery. Daniels remained in Alabama after the march, assisting with voter registration efforts, working at a health clinic, and helping integrate an Episcopal congregation. In August 1965 Daniels and fellow activists attempted to purchase drinks at a Hayneville store but were held at gunpoint by volunteer special deputy sheriff Tom Coleman, who demanded they leave the property. Coleman shot at 17-year-old African American activist Ruby Sales, but Daniels pushed Sales to the ground and took the impact of the blast, dying instantly. Coleman was charged with manslaughter in Daniels’ death, but an all white jury acquitted Coleman of all charges after deliberating for less than two hours.

Jacksonville, Calhoun County, Ala. Taxidermy tableaux. 2020.

Walker County, Ala. Toby. 2021.

Carrollton, Pickens County, Ala. Civil War Monument. 2020.

Fort Deposit, Lowndes County, Ala. Ben. 2021.

Uniontown, Perry County, Ala. 2020. Uniontown is home to around two thousand people, 91% of whom are Black. The average annual household income is just over $30,000, and 51% live in poverty. The city faces a multitude of environmental issues that affect the health and lives of its residents. At the time of a 2017 report by the Alabama State Nurses Association, Uniontown had only one doctor’s office and no public transportation system, with the nearest hospitals located more than 30 miles away.

Near Stewart, Hale County, Ala. Christenberry Home Place. 2021.

Talladega County, Ala. Ruins of Mt. Ida Plantation. 2020. Destroyed by fire in 1956, the 1840 Greek Revival-style antebellum mansion was built for Walker Reynolds, who owned some 13,000 acres of land and several hundred enslaved persons. The plantation–located near the site of Abihka, once one of four mother towns of the Muscogee Creek confederacy–was reportedly a location for the 1915 white-supremacist film, "Birth of a Nation."

Tuscaloosa, Tuscaloosa County, Ala. Glitter scattered on ruins of the former Alabama state capitol building. 2020 Yoholo-Micco, chieftan of the Upper Creek town of Eufala, is said to have addressed the Alabama Legislature in 1836 at the state capital in Tuscaloosa before departing the ancestral Muscogee homelands on the Trail of Tears. Yoholo-Micco’s actual words are unknown, but the white, colonial writers of history have painted the Creek leader as one who accepted indigenous removal with an air of romantic resignation, going so far as to contrive his final words in a way to whitewash the genocide that had taken place over 300+ years’ time. Yoholo-Micco’s apocryphal address––which has been reproduced in Alabama history books and grade school curriculum for decades––reads, in part: “I come here, brothers, to see the great house of Alabama and the men who make laws and say farewell in brotherly kindness before I go to the far west, where my people are now going.”

Sumter County, Ala. 2021. In 1978, a subsidiary of Waste Management Inc. purchased a landfill permit for a 300-acre tract of land just north of York, Ala. in a community where 90% of residents are Black. Since then, the company has expanded the site to 2,700 acres, creating the largest hazardous waste landfill in the United States directly over the Eutaw Aquifer, which supplies water to a large part of Alabama. Nearly 40% of the toxic waste disposed of nationwide between 1984-87 under the federal Superfund removal program ended up at the landfill. One of its original owners, James Parsons, is the son-in-law of former governor George Wallace. The political connections enabled the company to obtain the necessary permits from the Health Department to operate the dump.

Evergreen, Conecuh County, Ala. Antoine. 2021.

Birmingham, Jefferson County, Ala. Mural depicting the murder of George Floyd, Ensley neighborhood. 2020. According to a 2020 investigation by Northeastern University, 123 Black people were killed by white police officers in Jefferson County between 1932–1968. In only two cases were officers charged for the killings. For 26 of the 36 years chronicled, the commissioner of public safety in Birmingham was Eugene “Bull” Connor, who infamously turned fire hoses and attack dogs on civil rights protesters in Birmingham in 1963.

Macon County, Ala. 2022.

Tallassee, Elmore County, Ala. Ruins of Tallassee Mills, a Civil War–era armory and textile mill. 2020.

Monroe County, Ala. Near the site of Claiborne. 2021. Located along the Alabama River in present-day Monroe County, Claiborne was a once flourishing center of political and economic life in territorial Alabama. Serving as a base of operations during the Creek War in the early 19th century, Claiborne was also home to Alabama’s first Eli Whitney-designed cotton gin. Today, the Georgia-Pacific Alabama River Cellulose paper mill is located just upriver of the old town site. The mill produces specialty fluff and market pulp for consumer products that are found in more than 65% of U.S. households. While in process of switching to sustainable and renewable energy sources and investing in conservation projects, Georgia-Pacific self-reported that the Alabama River Cellulose paper mill released more than 120,000 pounds of reproductive toxins into the Alabama River in 2015.

Phenix City, Russell County, Ala. Mike. 2021. Located on the Chattahoochee River near the former Creek centers of Coweta and Yuchi Town, Phenix City has known a fraught and violent history. In the mid 20th century, Phenix City was home to the Dixie Mafia, and as murders, prostitution, and gambling ran rampant the town became known as “the wickedest city in the United States.”

Tuskegee, Macon County, Ala. Confederate monument covered with trash bag. 2022. Over recent years Macon County citizens, led by former Tuskegee mayor and city councilman Johnny Ford, have attempted to cover and remove the town’s Confederate monument. Erected by the Daughters of the Confederacy in 1906 on a plot gifted to the UDC by a then white-controlled county government, the statue became the centerpiece of the whites-only park in the town square -- a racist, white supremacist symbol placed in the heart of one of the most historically and culturally significant African American communities in the nation. In July 2021 Ford attempted to topple the monument, cutting through a leg before being stopped by the local sheriff. It was repaired by the UDC. Recent legal efforts by city officials to remove the statue have stalled, particularly in light of state legislation written to protect Confederate monuments. In February 2022 the Alabama state legislature advanced a bill by senator Gerald Allen (R-Tuscaloosa) that would increase the fine for violating the Alabama Memorial Preservation Act of 2017 from a $25,000 one-time fine to $5,000 per day.

Repton, Conecuh County, Ala. Dinosaur Adventure Land. 2021. Dinosaur Adventure Land is a Christian campground, science center, and adventure park dedicated to anti-evolution teaching. Its founder and leader, Christian fundamentalist Kent E. Hovind, takes a literalist interpretation of the Genesis creation narrative and promotes discredited Young Earth Creationist theories. Before building DAL in Alabama, Hovind operated a similar theme park in Pensacola and served a ten-year sentence in federal prison for failure to pay taxes, obstructing federal agents, and structuring cash transactions.

Carbon Hill, Walker County, Ala. Wanda and Jerry unload Trump-themed fireworks. 2020. “He’s my president–I just love him,” Wanda said as she went to kiss a box of “WE THE PEOPLE D.J. TRUMP” brand fireworks that guarantees “45 EPIC SHOTS.” Originally established as a mining and railroad community in 1863 by the Galloway Coal Company, Carbon Hill’s founders incorporated the town on February 14, 1891, nicknaming it “The Village of Love and Luck.” However, just two weeks prior a group of 200 white coal miners on strike from the Carbon Hill Coal and Coke Co. devolved into a violent mob after hearing rumor their strike would lead to layoffs. Afraid their jobs would be given to Black citizens, the mob terrorized the town. In 2019 Carbon Hill mayor Mark Chambers published several inflammatory statements on Facebook, including a call to “kill out” the LGBTQIA community. Chambers’ posts were later deleted, and he apologized. One year later Chambers aimed racist remarks at the Black Lives Matter movement in a Facebook comment that read in part, “When you put Black lives before all lives they can kiss my ass.” Three days after publishing the comment Chambers deleted his remarks and resigned.

Irondale, Jefferson County, Ala. Blake. 2021.

Russell County, Ala. Control Burn. 2022.

Pike County, Ala. Kudzu Canyon. 2022. Originally an Indigenous trade route, the Three Notch Road was constructed by U.S. Army engineers over the summer of 1824 to facilitate military communication between Pensacola and Ft. Mitchell, Ala. and establish a colonial foothold through Muscogee (Creek) territory. The 233-mile path was officially known as Road No. 6 but named locally for the distinctive horizontal notches blazed into trees by advancing surveyors as they marked the route for the builders who followed. The road was wide enough to allow “carriages, carts, wagons, &c.” and included “substantial wooden bridges.” Following Indian Removal, Three Notch Road became a major thoroughfare for those coming into present-day eastern Alabama. Today the exact route is not known, although vestiges of the road can be traced through Bullock, Covington, and Pike counties.

Holy Trinity, Russell County, Ala. Tommy. 2022.

Cottonton, Russell County, Ala. 2022.

Macon County, Ala. Near the former site of Fort Bainbridge. 2021. Located near several important Muscogee (Creek) towns along the Old Federal Road, Fort Bainbridge was constructed in 1814 to guard the U.S. Army’s supply route into Creek territory. After the Indian Removal Act of 1830, local white landowners established a plantation using extensive forced labor of enslaved people. Between 1932 and 1972, investigators from United States Public Health Service and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enrolled a total of 600 African-American men from Macon County in “The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male.” Participants were not informed of the nature of the experiment and left untreated for 40 years. As a result, 28 patients died directly from syphilis, 100 died from complications related to syphilis, 40 of the patients' wives were infected with syphilis, and 19 children were born with congenital syphilis.

Gadsden, Etowah County, Ala. Locust Street bridge, site of the lynching of Bunk Richardson. 2020. In July 1905, four Black men––Jack Hunter, Vance Garner, Will Johnson, and Bunk Richardson––were arrested for the murder of a white woman in Gadsden. Although Richardson was innocent, a mob forced its way into the Etowah County jail where he was being held, beat him, and lynched him from the train trestle over the Coosa River. No one was ever held accountable for the lynching.

Birmingham, Jefferson County, Ala. Jeremiah. 2020.