Selma (1983: Doomsday)

Selma, located in the former state of Alabama, is a citystate of approximately 13,500, believed to consist exclusively of African-Americans.

The citystate's key role in the African-American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s made it a powerful symbol for southern African-Americans. In the first months after Doomsday, it served as a place of refuge for all area Alabama residents, including refugees from nearby Montgomery, the state capital that had been destroyed. A provisional state government was established on December 27, 1983.

Despite the best efforts of city leaders and surviving state government officials, though, the provisional state government fell apart in 1985. While a town government struggled to assert authority over Selma, the surviving residents began to blame one another for the collapse. It quickly degenerated into a race-based argument, Caucasians and African-Americans blaming each other for the rapidly disintegrating state of affairs.

The voices of the few white and black leaders imploring the rest of the community that their problems had nothing to do with race fell on deaf ears. In April 1986, white supremacists, based in a nearby tent city and claiming themselves to be the successor to the Confederate States of America launched guerrilla-style attacks on black civilians in April 1986, claiming Selma as an "important part of the Confederacy". All-out war, the two sides divided by race, broke out. From April through July, it is estimated that nearly 10,000 people on both sides lost their lives. The war ended in a truce, never declared by either side but made necessary by the belief of leaders on both sides that further fighting would lead to the probable extinction of the known human race.

Regardless of their personal beliefs, white survivors made their way to New Montgomery to build their society, while black survivors stayed in Selma, to rebuild the town and build a new society of their own. Over the years, Selma residents have had skirmishes with New Montgomery residents, but both sides have stuck to their unspoken agreement not to bother one another. Selma has rejected overtures for formal relations with Hattiesburg and Natchez. It has also sent away a party from western Tennessee at gunpoint. And, Selma has exiled, or executed, a few of its citizens who - citing the teachings of Dr. Martin Luther King - called for Selma to seek peace with its neighbors.

One of those citizens, the Reverend Leonard Walker (who had participated in the famous Selma-to-Montgomery marches in 1965), was executed for treason in 1987. Walker has become famous in the region for a statement attributed to him in a sermon he preached before his fateful arrest:

''"As Dr. King, and others, fought through nonviolent means to change their world for the better, so must we honor their sacrifices. We do so in this new world, where God has seen fit to allow us to live, and given us an opportunity either to hate, and to fight to the death, or to put aside hatred, and work hand in hand with the man who should not be our enemy. Dr. King fought for a society in which all men, regardless of race or creed, were equal. We can choose to finish the war that the Russians started by destroying one another, or we can choose to take the opportunity that God has given us to work together to build a new society. One where all men and women, created equally by a loving God, partner together, work together, play together, worship together, build together. We must stand, with one another and with the white man, and honor the ideals and sacrifices of Dr. King and those like him. Selma must stand as a symbol not of freedom of oppression and hatred of the white man, but of freedom from oppression from the hatred and prejudice that resides in all human hearts. Selma must stand as a base for the building of a new nation, under God, where all men are equal, regardless of race, color or creed."''