The Black Belt: Selma, Alabama

(23 photos)
  • A chart in a cell phone store displays dental grills that can be ordered. There are more than 500 choices. The fashion accessory is a gold, silver, platinum, or jewel encrusted removable mouthpiece that usually covers six top or bottom teeth. Popularized in the early 1980's by hip-hop artists, grills can cost from a few hundred to thousands of dollars.
  • Abdur Rasheed Mumin displays his diamond cut removable gold grill at his store, Off Da Hook, on Water Avenue in Selma, Ala. Some states have outlawed grill manufacturing in recent years. Alabama law indicates grill vendors cannot cement or permanently install a grill or cause any permanent damage to the teeth. Grill vendors that do not adhere to the law are charged with practicing dentistry without a license, which is a felony.
  • Officer Dooling of the Selma Police Department relaxes after the media frenzy on the Edmund Pettus Bridge during the Bridge Crossing Jubilee celebrating the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. More than 20,000 people attended to watch senators Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton and former president Bill Clinton celebrate the 42nd anniversary of Bloody Sunday, where in 1965 peaceful demonstrators were met with violence by Sheriff Jim Clark and his posse.
  • Cemetery workers bury former Sheriff Jim Clark in his home town of Elba, Ala. Clark was the sheriff of Dallas County, Ala., from 1955 to 1966. He was best known for his role in Bloody Sunday on the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma. He died of a stroke at age 85.
  • Tesha, an exotic dancer at the Footwash in Greir, Hale County, holds a shotgun in front of The Pussy Tent, where patrons pay to see women strip dance. The Footwash began as a religious festival and has taken place outdoors on a 600-acre farm every year since 1888, making it one of the longest running festivals in the country and drawing crowds estimated at more than 20,000 over a weekend.
  • A woman holding a bag of money dances for a crowd of men in the G Money Bad Bitches tent at the Footwash in Hale County. The annual festival, established more the 119 years ago by a benevolent society, was marred Thursday night by the shooting death of a Marengo County man, in what authorities believe was a domestic dispute.
  • Coach Herman Turner gives a pep talk to the Selma High School basketball team, the Saints, in the locker room at half time on Friday. The Saints lost to the Tigers 62-53.
  • Dozens of deer, headless and disemboweled hang in a cooler at Nichols Deer Processing. Hunters from around the region bring their trophies to be turned into sausage, jerky and other products. A percentage of the meat is donated to local food banks.
  • Children play on an inflatable slide at Keith High School in Orrville, Ala.
  • Donnie Ross, Jasmine Clare, and Kayla Smith compete in the doughnut on a string contest at the Salvation Army fall festival.
  • Two boys play in front of the Dallas County Jail in Brantley, Ala., where their father's are jailed on drug charges.
  • Forest Dreher, of Birmingham, Ala., displays his second dove killing of the day at the Youth Dove Hunt. This was his fourth year hunting with his family at the Auburn Experimental Agriculture Station.
  • Kendrick Green, left, and Lamont Paige, right, of Selma, pack up their car after collecting several hundred pounds of Spanish moss from Live Oak Cemetery in Selma Sunday afternoon. The moss will be sold to be used as stuffing in the lining of coffins and furniture.
  • Family members of Jerry Lee Moore grieve at the scene of his shooting death Friday afternoon in Selma, Ala. Moore's body was discovered in the driver's seat of a vehicle at the intersection of Minter Avenue and Kayser Street.
  • Ernest Randall reveals his injuries after an unknown attacker struck him in the mouth with a brick Tuesday night while he was asleep at his home on Young Street. The blow knocked out several of his teeth.
  • A victim of a Saturday afternoon blaze at the Traveler's Motel, who declined to give his name, was burned when a grease fire spread to his couch. The man had been living in his room at the motel for two months.
  • Land owner Bobby Bearden and his employees create a fire line to contain a blaze as it burns through the dry Blue Gurth Swamp.
  • Carol Tennimon waits as a Selma fire fighter climbs into the attic of her home on Pike Road Friday afternoon. A fire destroyed the house next door and spread to the roof of Tennimon's home.
  • A car was struck by a westbound Norfolk Southern train where the tracks cross Highway 219 in Potter, Ala. Thursday at 5 p.m.
  • Suits on display in the window of On Time Fashions in down town Selma.
  • A member of the Selma Police Department Narcotics Division holds a Colt semi automatic 9mm carbine on the third floor of the Selma Police department.
  • Children scream as they ride the "Sizzler" the "Hotshot" and the Ferris wheel at the Central Alabama Fair sponsored by the Lions Club on Thursday night.
  • A giant flock of starlings rises from a field of millet on County Road 7 near Tyler, Ala.