Common Ground

"Stop and consider life is but a day.
A fragile dewdrop on its perilous way
From a tree's summit."

So reads one faded etching on a monument in Selma's "outdoor museum" known as Old Live Oak Cemetery.

Another tells about a 15-year-old boy "who was fatally injured in the railraod disaster at Dunklin Bridge, Feb. 21, 1879."

A marble lamb with broken feet lies next to this inscription:
"Beneath this stone in sweet repose is laid a mother's dearest pride."
An infant rests there.

A spire memorializes "Our Pastor...who fell at the Battle of Selma, April 2, 1865."

Elsewhere, sculpted crosses, angels, mausoleums and markers denote the contributions of the town's former citizens: mothers who died suddenly, children who succumbed to infectious disease, scores of Confederate soldiers, a former slave who became the state's first black congressman, the first woman (a Suffragette) elected to the state legislature, U.S. senators, a U.S. vice president and founder of Selma, a naval commander.

"There is glory in graves," read the words on the towering monument above them all...and all share common ground now - near the high banks of the Alabama River.