Joe Minter's Yard, Alabama

Joe Minter is a visionary artist who has created a sculpture park of American history in his backyard. Using lumber, dolls, lawn ornaments, doors, and other found materials that he shapes, paints, assembles, and writes on, Minter has created a walk-through "African Village in America," as he sometimes calls it, a "reclaiming of the telling of history." The sculptures are like exhibits in a museum, each telling a different part of a historical story about civil rights, compassion, and historical and current events, nationally and locally. There is the unbuilt bridge at Gee's Bend, the famous built bridge at Selma, a memorial to the 2004 tsunami victims, and a commentary on the 9/11 attacks. Minter usually greets visitors if he can, and helps to make his park come alive. His place is the last house on the block, and abuts two of the main historic black graveyards in the city (Grace Hill and Shadow Lawn) where hundreds of tombs buckle with neglect.