I turned off the engine and opened the car door.

Light reflected off the sidewalk, harsh enough to remind me to grab my sunglasses. Within five minutes, sweat was beading on my forehead, and the air was dense enough to wear. But my attention was immediately pulled to a sign just a few feet away. Two quotations at the top seemed to jump out at me:

“We were considered insignificant.” — Rev. Janet Garner-Mullins

“We always say not urban renewal, but urban removal.” — Mamie F. Cuthbertson

I sat with those words for a minute and took in my surroundings.

What happens to a culture when it forgets the places that formed it?

How does forgetting shape what people value, how they relate to their community, and how they understand themselves within the larger story of a place?

I learned this firsthand the evening before I spent a morning photographing at the Whitney Plantation in Louisiana.

The day before had been rainy and brisk. I toured the grounds and listened as the history of the place was laid before me in careful, unflinching detail. Among the stories I encountered was that of a man named Charles Deslondes — born around 1780, executed in January 1811.

I stopped in my tracks.

Not from any visible interruption — but from something that arrived before I could name it. I stood still, and directed my awareness away from sight and toward the sounds of the forest. And my surroundings began to speak.

Within minutes of searching, a wave of shame surged through me—like an unanticipated tsunami tearing through a quiet coastal town.

Traveling with questions doesn't require special knowledge or spiritual expertise—only intention.

This is why learning to see the unspectacular feels countercultural. Slowing down feels unproductive. Lingering feels indulgent. And yet, this internal shift is precisely what allows beauty to arise in places that don't announce themselves as worthy of admiration.

What does it mean to walk among the dead in a city still very much alive?

Iron shaped Birmingham. Sloss shaped that iron.

A city reveals what it values by what it preserves.