THE JAXSON | The oak tree that remembers Black Bottom

Whenever Nancy Baker returns to the little church of her childhood, there is someone else she has to visit. Across from where her family s home once stood is an old oak tree. Nancy walks over to it, puts her arms around its trunk and hugs it. She has a good reason. So much of the Jacksonville neighborhood where Nancy grew up is gone that finding the places of her childhood can sometimes feel like searching for something that exists only in memory. The houses are gone, the little stores are gone and families who once lived within shouting distance of one another scattered long ago. But the oak is still there. It stood across from the Murphy family home when Nancy was a little girl. Her mother and other adults threw a rope over one of its heavy limbs and made a swing for the neighborhood children. Nancy remembers playing beneath it, hiding around it and gathering there with children whose families all seemed to know one another. The tree knew Black Bottom when Black Botto