In This Edition
Five profiles. Five people still building
in Northeast Alabama.
The Burning Bus
Freedom Riders National Monument · Anniston
On May 14, 1961, a Greyhound bus was firebombed outside Anniston. The photograph ran in forty countries. The place is now a national monument two blocks from a hardware store.
The View from the Boat
Jean Ellison · Mom-To-Go & The Music Box
Jean Ellison spent twenty years at JSU. Then her second child was born, her car was repossessed, a friend sat with her on the floor, and she built a restaurant on Noble Street.
A New Way of Growing
Samuel & John Mark Sawyer · Aquality Farms
A father and son growing food in water. Aquaculture in Alabama, twenty miles from where their family has farmed for four generations.
1030 Gurnee
Lewis Downing · Downing and Sons
Lewis Downing has run his family's hardware store next door to the Freedom Riders monument his whole adult life. The store opened in 1963.
When the Churches Stopped Competing
Interfaith Ministries of Calhoun County
What happens when forty congregations decide to stop working separately and start working together.
Plus: an essay by Matt Headley on the Bloom Bar — the converted horse trailer that started as a hat bar and became a flower shop. And an excerpt from Chief Ladiga, 1832.
Reserve Your Copy
200 copies. Fall 2026.
$15 per copy. Available at The Aisle Bridal Expo on October 18, 2026 at Anniston Museums & Gardens — and at select local spots in Northeast Alabama.
Email to reserve → $1510% of every copy sold supports early childhood literacy through UWECA’s Imagination Library program. The State of Alabama doubles every dollar — so your $1.50 becomes $3 for a child’s bookshelf.