One turns east at the beginning of I-85 to head east to Atlanta and the Carolinas. This first stretch of I-85 is marked, "Martin Luther King Memorial Expressway". They don't forget here in Alabama, the man who turned America upside down is not only remembered, but also revered. With the exception of a very few die-hards, no one in the south wants to go back to segregation, indeed, "Jim Crow" is not even a vapor on the landscape. The idea of racial segregation seems completely foreign here, and indeed it is. In all the places I go, white and black people work alongside each other, play alongside each other, live next door, and more than occasionally, marry each other. How things have changed.
 Ed Garren. |
But it started here. A large billboard near downtown notes it is the 50th anniversary year of the Montgomery bus boycott. The billboard is within "spittin distance" of the state Capital buildings, the Southern Poverty Law Center (with it's Civil Rights Memorial designed by Mia Lin).
"Let justice roll down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream". The words of the prophet Amos came to life here in Montgomery, and no one forgets it.
We southerners live for history. Perhaps it is a longing to be connected, or simply understand the present. Whatever it is, like a long lost tribe of Israel, people in the south make sure that no one forgets. Blood was shed here, blood for freedom, and the sense of security that goes with remembering the triumph.
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Down the road from Montgomery is Tuskegee , with its world famous institute, now a University. White folks of privilege may go to Auburn University up the road, but Black folks who want an excellent education, steeped in the heritage of their history as a people, go to Tuskegee, or Spellman, or Moorehouse, or Florida A&M, or Bethune Cookman, or the hundreds of historically all black colleges, where graduates have a command of English, History, and the Liberal Arts that is second to none.
All of this heritage rolled upon me like waves, as if the rolling orange hills were ocean surf of dreams and memories, the thousands of memories of long dead slaves, and Scotch-Irish farmers, who often worked the land side by side, and struggled here, made love here, died here. This land, oozing with the cadences of Celtic folk ballads, gospel, the blues, jazz, and rock & roll. This orange earth, rich with the blood of creation, it all starts here.
 By Ryan Gierach. |
Two simple people, with a profound sense of personal dignity, brought together by the creator, Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King Jr., sparked what even Lincoln, the Civil War and reconstruction could not do, the fulfillment of civil rights for all Americans. "The Movement" changed America, if not the world. The reverberations of it reached to New York with the Stonewall rebellion, and West Hollywood with the creation of the first "Gay City" in the history of the world.
One may argue and dice technicalities, but West Hollywood exists because of a Gay vision, a place to call our own, safe from the constant scrutiny and persecution of "them". It was to be our Israel, the promised land, home, in the larger sense. We were glad to share that vision with others, but it roots in the desire for justice and equality were clear.
I guess my southern background gives me a heightened sense of place, and the significance of it. In the south, only things that last have meaning. A 20-year run is but a blip on the landscape. Sadly, West Hollywood's 20 year run as the Gay Jerusalem is about over.
 Ed with friends Mama and Sonia Hong. |
The demographics are clear, and the destruction of the city by "The Empire" at City Hall has sealed that fate. There won't be any streets names after the founders of the city, no Ron Stone Boulevard, no Sheldon Andelson Square. In another 20 years, when the last of "Boys Town" is demolished by the current owner's heirs to make way for mixed use buildings with corporate owned businesses in them, no one will put up a plaque or historical marker to mention that this place was once the center of Gay life in Southern California, if not the world.
The Gay community in West Hollywood will be but a memory, much like the Jews who once dominated Austrian/German culture and arts, but now are simply gone and forgotten.
Before you think I'm being "paranoid" or "over dramatic", please consider my campaign materials from my election a year ago. I talked about the destruction of the city's character, replacing 2 story buildings with 4 or higher, turning our streets into canyons, displacing our family owned small businesses with large corporate boxes. I specifically mentioned Crescent Square (Marco's) and Movie Town Plaza (Yukon Mining Company). I said that if John Duran were re-elected, we would see zoning changes, which would do all this, and destroy the character of the city forever. Few were listening then, only 712 visionaries understood my concern over these issues.
John Duran, the empire's third vote, got re-elected, and now their agenda is in overdrive. If they get their way, Santa Monica Boulevard will become a canyon of ten floor buildings, and most of the apartments in the city will be razed to be replaced by larger, even more impersonal buildings, with condos, not rentals. In spite of all the rhetoric, little of it will be "affordable". Talk is cheap, particularly in West Hollywood.
 By Ryan Gierach. |
Now, a 10 floor mixed use is planned for Movie Town Plaza, and something similar for Crescent Square. Of course, all the small family owned businesses would be gone. Trader Joes may return, but no one on city council cares, they all go the one on the west side, near their homes.
I have one friend who describes high rises and the people who live in them as "Rock Doves". A "Rock Dove" is a fancy name for the common urban pigeon. What do pigeons do? They inhabit spaces high above, ledges, roof parapets, anywhere they can perch. They only come down to earth to eat. The rest of the time, they remain aloof on their elevated perches, crapping on everything under them.
Ed Garren can be reached, even in the Red America’s wilds, at