Walking to the Bus-Rider Blues is set in Montgomery, Alabama, during late June 1956, six months after Rosa Parks's arrest.

Settings within the city offer contrasts of shelter, inclusion, exclusion, love versus danger, and hate with some places harboring elements of both good and bad or exhibiting them in varying degrees. Ironically, Montgomery is where both the Civil War and Civil Rights Movement had significant beginnings. In 1861, that city was the first Confederate capitol where politicians approved some of the first orders approving military action against federal troops. Alfa refers to places in the city where slaves were sold.

Almost one hundred years later, Rosa Parks refused to give her bus seat to a white passenger and was arrested. This was the catalyst for social protest and legal action by other African Americans in Montgomery who had previously taken a stand against injustices and racial inequality. The bus boycott...