Walking in Tuscaloosa

I can't sleep, and Tuscaloosa is on my mind. As I've started to retrace the route of the original Freedom Riders, my thoughts constantly shift back to the people--my people--of Tuscaloosa, AL.

In the week following the April 27 tornado in Tuscaloosa, I took photographs while Jake & Jameson navigated the traffic and destruction. The communal response to the most devastating natural disaster that I have every witnessed connected people in a unique way, and I desperately wanted to capture the basic human response during a time where raw, visceral human emotions poured out.

Until a few days later, I decided against taking pictures outside of the car because of an internal conflict that is still raging. As an able-bodied young man, I knew that I could help with manual labor, but as a documentarian, I wanted to capture the ways in which people of all ages responded to this tragedy. Working side by side with other people without ever knowing their name inspired me, and I feel intimately connected to these nameless people.

On April 29, here is a tweet I posted that describes this feeling:

@marshallhouston: Long day at Tuscaloosa Emergency Services. Inspiring to watch the warehouse fill up as 8 year olds worked beside 75 year olds & UA students

Ultimately, I decided against photographing or filming the response, and I'm still having an internal discussion on my decision. 

On one hand, the physical labor was cathartic and liberating; the blood, sweat, and tears that I shared with other people served as a coping mechanism. As a young boy, I saw my father respond to tornado damage by joining other men in our community in the cleanup efforts. He would rise at dawn and then return at dusk with the day’s filth and grime covering his face. My father knew his role in the communal response, and he played it well.

When I began to realize the magnitude of the April 27th tornado, I knew that I could not and would not leave Tuscaloosa; pops had already made that decision for me with his actions over 15 years prior. The physical exhaustion freed my mind in ways that I have trouble explaining, but it connected me to my community in a time of great pain because it was a shared exhaustion.

Though I wouldn’t change my decision to pass on capturing the relief efforts, I do wish I could have documented the faces and visual stories of the disaster response. The most powerful images and stories—and the ones I hope to capture—focus on the raw, unfiltered emotion that characterizes the human condition. After April 27, Tuscaloosa became the backdrop for those emotions.

Though I missed an opportunity to share these individual stories, I played my role, and I played it well.