A segregationist running for president needed a venue for a campaign rally, and the only place available was an amphitheater in a new city designed, at least in part, as a rebuke against our nation's troubled history of racism and segregation.

Sounds like a decent set up to a joke, right? Wait for the punchline.

After being turned down by Baltimore over concerns about protests his visit would ignite, George “Segregation Now, Segregation Forever” Wallace found a host for his rally in Columbia — more specifically, the community's developer, James Rouse.

Rouse's willingness to host Wallace at Merriweather Post Pavilion in 1968 would seem at odds with his much-celebrated vision of a city that embraced social change, rejected America's systemic injustice and rested upon this core set of values: acceptance, stewardship, compassion, shared responsibility, opportunity, equality and love.

But perhaps Rouse already knew the punchline: While Wallace played to his crowd at Merriweather, many of Columbia's diverse residents hosted a rally of their own, one in which they professed their love for each other — not in spite of, but rather because of their differences.

As the Howard County Times wrote the week after both rallies: “Fear knocked at the door of Columbia last week. Faith answered. A development disappeared and a community was born.”

That community celebrates its 50th anniversary this year as it enjoys renewed recognition — it was recently called “the best small city in America” by Money Magazine, a ranking that cited many of the central tenants of Rouse's vision: diversity, education, environmental preservation and opportunity for all.

This celebration also comes at a time when fear is again knocking.

Today, as Columbia looks at 50, its residents and leaders must also turn their gaze outward to a world where fear, anxiety, divisiveness and tribalism are growing, where systemic inequalities continue to fester.

While Columbia and its residents are occasionally prone to insularity and excessive self-reverence (the “Colum-bubble”), the city has always recognized its ties to a broader social context. Rouse's vision sprouted in response to new suburbs spreading like invasive weeds across the landscape, to the detriment of existing neighbors and the local environment.

Moreover, Columbia was meant to serve as corrective to segregation, both in the real estate market and society at large. Indeed, in the early 1960s, as Rouse assembled land and a multi-disciplinary “work group” of experts for his “garden for growing people,” Howard County was still home to segregated schools.

Rouse's vision and the community he sought to create are not natural. Our instincts push us toward tribalism, not diversity. Columbia's foundational values, institutions and even its physical design were meant to serve as the counterweight to these instincts, pulling us toward our shared humanity.

But because our instincts are inherent and Columbia and its values manufactured, ensuring that the city continues to pull its residents toward humanity requires constant struggle, and as anxiety and fear encroach, the struggle grows in difficulty and importance.

Columbia is not perfect, and on its own it never solved the broader problems it sought to address. But as a city, it succeeded, thanks largely to great vision, enlightened stewardship and a friendly zoning code. Its physical environment ensures many of Rouse's core ideas — neighborhood schools, community gathering places, plentiful open space — will persist.

Meanwhile, its persistence as a community based on values, a “garden for growing people,” is more ephemeral and tenuous, needing continued nurturing, renewal and a willingness on the part of residents to pursue a better civilization with intention, diligence and doggedness. Especially when fear is at the door.

The challenge Columbia faces in 2017 and beyond is to recognize an important, if oft overlooked, fact: Its values are not enshrined in law. There is no requirement that residents, businesses, leaders or institutions adhere to them in any meaningful sense. There is only our commitment as members of this community — a largely unspoken pledge to fulfill and uphold Columbia's original promise.

We cannot simply preach diversity or opportunity or acceptance or love for all; we must actively practice and embody these values, as individuals and members of a community, in our personal and professional lives, whenever and wherever possible, through words and actions.

Ian Kennedy is executive director of the Downtown Columbia Arts and Culture Commission. His email is ian@dcacc.info.