Brave? Me? Nah.

“So you’re traveling by yourself?” the woman asked me as we wrapped up a tour of Dexter Avenue King Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, this past April. When I answered yes, she said, “Wow, that’s brave.”

The woman — about my age, late forties — was part of a Friendship Force group of about a dozen Americans and Brits that had swelled the 12 p.m. tour now wrapping up. For the past hour our exuberant docent, Wanda, had led us around Dexter Baptist, discussing its significance in the civil rights movement.