St. Jude’s iconic sculpture garden spruced up in west Montgomery

They gathered Saturday, on the 58^th anniversary of the culmination of the Selma to Montgomery March, to unveil a rebirth of sorts of the sculpture garden at the intersection of Fairview Avenue and Oak Street.

It was here on March 24, 1965, on the campus of St. Jude, where tens of thousands of marchers camped overnight before continuing on to the state Capitol. It’s known as Campsite No. 4 on the Selma to Montgomery Historic Trail.

The garden is on city property, and the centerpiece of the low brick-walled plaza is a steel arched structure symbolizing the iconic shape of the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, and images of marchers starting on the last leg of the week-long journey. The sculpture was sited in 2015, the 50^th Anniversary of the march.

The spot had fallen into a state of neglect, neighborhood folk say, with trees growing in the beds. Enter the City of Montgomery and a coalition of those same neighborhood folk, to do a little sprucing up.

New shrubs, rosebushes and flowers…