Tales from the Road: Huntsville and Scottsboro, Alabama

We met amazing people and came away so inspired.

Mar 26, 2025

Blessings to All Y’all People of Conscience,

It’s rare that we send our newsletter twice in such a short period of time, but our recent visit to Alabama gave us a lot to think about and reflect upon.

Our visit to the communities of Huntsville and Scottsboro was coordinated by two organizations: Temple B’nai Sholom and The Scottsboro Boys Museum. These two organizations have grown close to one another on the basis of the personal and professional connection between the Temple’s Rabbi, PJ Schwartz, and the museum’s Executive Director, Dr. Thomas Reidy. Their partnership is an example of how two organizations with complimentary missions and shared values can amplify one another, creating a sense of solidarity and shared purpose.

Dating back to 1877, Temple B’nai Sholom has the distinction of being the oldest continually operating synagogue in Alabama. The synagogue is located in the downtown section of Huntsville and is both a historic site and has an absolutely stunning sanctuary. Temple B’nai Sholom faces many of the challenges and opportunities that smaller Jewish communities in the Southern United States often face. The congregants care deeply about their community’s past, present, and future. Together with their rabbi, they face the challenge and opportunity of being the most prominent Jewish voice in Huntsville. The two of us were deeply moved by Rabbi Schwartz’s powerful teachings, his moral clarity, his compassion and his deep dedication to leading Temple B’nai Sholom. The congregants we met were engaged, proud, thoughtful, and so very welcoming. We enjoyed leading Shabbat evening services with Rabbi Schwartz as well as a musical Torah study on Saturday morning. Drawing our theme from the weekly Torah portion, that study session was entitled “Community as a Verb.” It was inspiring to hear the ways that community is a verb for those who call Temple B’nai Sholom their spiritual home.

30 miles down the road from Temple B’nai Sholom is the Scottboro Boys museum. Scottsboro, smaller than Huntsville, provides a rich and complex setting for a museum dedicated to telling one of the most significant stories of racial injustice that took place during the 1930s. That story involves 9 black boys (ages 13-20) who were accused and found guilty of a crime they did not commit. Their story involves hoboing on a railroad--- the very railroad upon which we heard passing trains during our evening concert at the museum. That concert, in commemoration of the 94th anniversary of the Scottsboro Boys trial, was a celebration of the museum as well as a call to action. Like many smaller museums that tell complicated and nuanced stories, The Scottsboro Boys Museum is seeking to engage as many visitors as possible as well as to expand their presence in the community. They have a dynamic team actively working toward those goals.

The current political climate poses challenges to institutions like Temple B’nai Sholom and The Scottsboro Boys Museum. These challenges include the difficulty of sustaining a community during times of great political discord as well as anticipating potential shifts in funding sources that sustain their important work. While we detected an undeniable subtext of uncertainty, we more strongly detected great resolve, dedication, and passion toward greeting these and future challenges.

We’ll end with a story that illustrates just a bit of the complexity of this region. On Saturday afternoon we stopped in the town square of Scottsboro to grab a snack. Seeing a big crowd at a local cafe, we decided to go there. Payne’s Sandwich Shop and Soda Fountain is a Scottsboro institution dating back to the 1860’s. As we approached the cafe we had the surreal experience of seeing a huge poster in the window with our picture on it, advertising the museum concert. There we were in a small town in Northern Alabama, plastered in the storefront window. It was so bizarre and also, we confess, pretty cool. Later that evening we were speaking with a longtime resident of Scottsboro who is African American. When we told her that we had been at Payne’s she smiled and told us a story. As a young child she also loved Payne’s. She loved Payne’s even though, at that time, it was their policy to serve black customers but with the caveat that they were not allowed to be seated in the cafe. One time, she took a visiting cousin from Ohio to Payne’s. That cousin sat down after receiving her ice cream cone since she didn’t know that this “wasn’t allowed.” Seeing her cousin sit down, the lady we spoke with also sat down. A few moments later the proprietor of Payne’s stormed out of the kitchen shouting racial slurs at the two young girls and leading them to run fearfully out of the cafe.

These are the types of stories that we gather in our travels. These are the types of stories that remind us of the promise and also the peril that exist in our world. The past is never really too far behind us, and the future that we seek to build requires of us tremendous effort in the here and now. Our time in Huntsville and Scottsboro left us feeling deep admiration for the people we met there. We hope that our music and our visit helped strengthen, uplift, and honor the good work and the good people that we were so blessed to witness.

Here are a few pictures from our visit.