American Notes ALABAMA

There is no more fitting place than Montgomery, Ala., site of the epic 1955-56 black boycott to desegregate the bus system, to memorialize the nation's decades-long struggle for civil rights. Last week 5,000 black and white Americans gathered there to dedicate a black granite sculpture engraved with the names of 40 particularly unforgettable men, women and children -- an honor roll representing the untold numbers of people who have died in violent racial confrontations.

Centerpiece of the structure -- conceived by Maya Lin, who designed Washington's Viet Nam Veterans Memorial -- is a round tabletop, 11 1/2 ft. in diameter. On it, along with the 40 names, is carved a chronology of major civil rights events, and over this flows a thin sheen of water, a symbol of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "mighty stream" of righteousness. Said Karen Reeb, daughter of a white Unitarian minister who was beaten to death after he marched with King in Selma, Ala.: "It just eases the emptiness in my heart."