In Selma, Alabama Memorial Day is About Honoring and Remembering

Here in Selma, Alabama, we do a lot of remembering. We honor the people who lived and worked and built this city from 1819 to the Civil War. We remember, and honor the people who fought the Civil War, those who lived here and those who came to be part of the war effort that centered from this bend in the Alabama River. We do an annual reenactment of the Battle of Selma. We honor those who rebuilt Selma after the war. We remember and honor many of the prominent citizens of Selma throughout the years, and the great many who went off from Selma to do great things throughout the nation and the world.

Of course, we remember well the Civil Rights efforts that became Battles right here in Selma. We remember Bloody Sunday and the people who's great efforts ultimately changed the world... and we remember that we as a community played a large part in the reality that a mere forty some years after Jim Crow began to stagger and die, we have an African American president in the White House.

We also remember our veterans, those service men and women who lived and died so that we can have the right to change history when it seems right to do that.

George Evans is our second African American mayor. He was elected to that office by beating the first African American mayor who was running for re-election. George Evans is our mayor, but he is an educator, by training and by experience and by temperament. He is someone who leads by teaching.

On Memorial Day this year, for the first of what will likely be an annual event, at 3 p.m. in the afternoon, Selma will stop for a full minute of remembrance. The police will be in position to stop traffic. The community will know that the time is coming. The sirens will sound to let everyone know the minute will soon be here. The sirens will sound again, and Selma will stop.

We, the citizens of Selma, will show honor and respect by merely stopping to remember the fallen heroes of many generations and many conflicts. We will remember those who served in our country's armed forces, and those who continue to serve. We will remember those who served by teaching America's young people, for, as Edmund Burke proclaimed, "education is the cheap defense of nations." We will remember those veterans of the civil rights conflicts, and those who suffered the pain of other's intolerance and disrespect.

For one minute, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon. Selma will stop. And in that minute Selma will show the highest honor a people can show those who went before. We will remember them.