National Memorial for Peace and Justice

Last updated

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice
Memorial Corridor at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.jpg
The memorial includes 805 hanging steel rectangles, representing each of the counties in the United States where a documented lynching took place
National Memorial for Peace and Justice
32°22′19″N86°18′46″W / 32.37194°N 86.31278°W / 32.37194; -86.31278
Location Montgomery, Alabama
Opening dateApril 26, 2018;5 years ago (2018-04-26)
Website Official website
Owner Equal Justice Initiative

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, [1] is a memorial to commemorate the black victims of lynching in the United States. It is intended to focus on and acknowledge past racial terrorism and advocate for social justice in America. Founded by the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative, it opened in downtown Montgomery, Alabama on April 26, 2018. [2] [3]

Contents

It consists of a memorial square with 805 hanging steel rectangles representing each of the U.S. counties where a documented lynching took place. It includes sculptures depicting themes related to racial violence.

The monument was positively received by architectural critics, activists, and the general public. Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post described it as "one of the most powerful and effective new memorials created in a generation". [4]

Background

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice was created by the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) on a six acre site in the downtown area of Montgomery, Alabama. The memorial opened to the public April 26, 2018. [5] The memorial is connected to the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, which opened the same day, near the site of a former market in Montgomery where enslaved people were sold. EJI hopes that the memorial "inspires communities across the nation to enter an era of truth-telling about racial injustice and their own local histories." [5]

The memorial not only focuses on the legacy of racial terror lynchings, racial segregation and Jim Crow, but also present issues of guilt and police violence. [5] The six-acre site includes sculptures and displays from Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, Dana King, and Hank Willis Thomas. There are writings and words from Toni Morrison, Elizabeth Alexander, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. A reflection space is located on the memorial site in honor Ida B. Wells. [5]

The largest part of the memorial is the memorial square. The memorial square was created using EJI's study, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror. [6] The memorial consists of 805 suspended steel beams. Each beam represents a county within a state where a racial terror lynching occurred and was documented. Each of the six-foot beams is engraved with the names and locations of the victims of racial terrorism, including lynching. Victims of racial terrorism whose names are unknown are remembered on the beams as well. The memorial includes replicas of the steel beams that are set off to the side. These replica beams are a part of EJI's Community Remembrance Project. [7]

The development and construction of the memorial complex cost an estimated $20 million, raised from private foundations. [8] Bryan Stevenson, founder of the EJI, was inspired by the examples of the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin, Germany, and the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg, South Africa, to create a single memorial to victims of white supremacy in the United States. [9]

EJI's Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror was a multi-year investigation into racial lynchings. [10] By studying records in counties across the United States, researchers documented almost 4400 racial terror lynchings in the post-Reconstruction era between 1877 and 1950. Most took place in the decades just before and after the turn of the 20th century. [11] [3] [12] A conversation about the difficulty of doing research on lynchings and racial terror violence was started when an error was found at the memorial not long after its opening. [13] The error, a mistake in naming a victim from Duluth, Minnesota, was quickly corrected by EJI. [13]

Description

Memorial monuments Memorial Monuments at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice.jpg
Memorial monuments

In the central position is the memorial square with 805 hanging steel rectangles, the size and shape of coffins. These name and represent each of the counties and their states where a documented lynching took place, as compiled in the EJI study, Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror (2017, 3rd edition). Each of the steel plates has the names of the documented lynching victims (or "unknown" if the name is not known). The names and dates of documented victims are engraved on the panels. Visitors to the site have commented on how, from afar, the beams look like a forest of hanging bodies, and the replica beams off to the side look like rows of coffins. [14] [15] More than 4075 documented lynchings of black people took place between 1877 and 1950, concentrated in 12 Southern states. In addition, the EJI has published supplementary information about lynchings in several states outside the South. The monument is the first major work in the nation to name and honor these victims. [16]

The central memorial was designed by MASS Design Group [17] with Lam Partners lighting design, [18] and built on land purchased by EJI. [2] [19] Hank Willis Thomas's sculpture, Rise Up, features a wall, from which emerge statues of black heads and bodies raising their arms in surrender to the viewer. The piece suggests visibility, which is one of the intentions of the monument. The viewer is asked to focus and see the subject of the artwork. This is a more current piece [20] commenting on the police violence and police brutality prevalent in the years preceding the memorial. Thomas has said about his artwork, "I see the work that I make as asking questions." [21]

In the landscaped area outside the monument are benches where visitors can sit to reflect. These commemorate such activists as journalist Ida B. Wells, who in the 1890s risked her life to report that lynchings were more about economic competition of blacks and whites, than actual assaults by blacks of whites. [22] Laid in rows on the ground are steel columns corresponding to those hanging in the Memorial. These columns are intended to be temporary. The Equal Justice Initiative is asking representatives of each of the counties to claim their monument and establish a memorial on home ground to lynching victims, and to conduct related public education. [23] The placing of these monuments is that last step of EJI's Community Remembrance Project, and a memorial beam is placed when a community has engaged with and discussed issues of racial violence both in the past and present in their communities. [5] EJI hopes that the monument in the community will "stand as a symbolic reminder of the community’s continuing efforts to truthfully grapple with painful racial history, challenge injustice where it exists in their own lives, and vow never to repeat the terror and violence of the past." [5]

A month after the monument's opening, the Montgomery Advertiser reported that citizens in Montgomery County were considering asking for their column. Both county and the city of Montgomery officials were discussing this. [24]

Central monuments

Nkyinkyim by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo

Installation by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo Nkyinkim Installation by Kwame Akoto Bamfo at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.jpg
Installation by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo

The Memorial is organized in three different sections. The first section is the lead up to the monument which begins to tell the tale of the beginning of the lives of African Americans through the demonstration of the racial terror evoked in the Middle Passage. [25] Visitors first encounter a sculpture by Ghanaian artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo entitled Nkyinkyim, meaning "twisted", a term referring to a Ghanaian proverb, "life is a twisted journey". The sculpture, seven shackled figures of all ages and genders interlocked together, is part of larger project Akoto-Bamfo began in Accra, Ghana where he creates clay busts of formerly enslaved people in an attempt to preserve their memories and livelihood, a common tradition practiced by the Akan people in Ghana. [26]

In the Middle Passage, people were stripped of their African identity through the loss of names, ethnic identity, families, and more. The Nkyinkyim sculptures include description and details of each shackled person portrayed; Akoto-Bamfo's sculptures aim to return these identities symbolically, giving them backgrounds ranging from “Daughter of a Royal” to “Uncle’s Brother” to “The Lost Guardian”. [27]

Guided by Justice by Dana King

American artist Dana King's Guided by Justice is a rendering of the Montgomery Bus Boycott during the Civil Rights Movement. It depicts three women: a grandmother, a teacher, and a pregnant woman. There are footprints on the ground near the three people, representing a call to action for others to join them in the cause. [28] King's sculpture aims to have viewers reconsider the mythology of the heroines of the bus boycott: mythologizing historical figures like Rosa Parks draws attention away from the thousands of other black people who were central in the success of the bus boycott; the three anonymous figures and the adjacent footprints demonstrate the importance of these "silent activists". [29]

Raise Up by Hank Willis Thomas

The Raise Up installation Rise Up by Hank Willis Thomas.jpg
The Raise Up installation

The journey through the memorial continues with Hank Willis Thomas's sculpture Raise Up, a depiction of policing in America. The sculpture depicts ten Black men, encased in concrete, some with their heads sunken into the concrete with their hands up and their eyes closed. [28] Cultural studies scholar Tanja Schult saw Thomas' sculpture as a powerful evocation of the reality of black men in America when coming face to face with law enforcement. Thomas interestingly encases these Black men in concrete, leaving them unable to move. Some figures' heads are sunken in as well, further demonstrating the lack of control and autonomy black people have over their bodies. Though most of their bodies covered, their hands are clearly visible, referencing the many stories of unarmed Black men being shot and brutalized by the police despite their innocence. The National Memorial uses Thomas’ sculpture as a connection to the present, a kind of call to action that the fight for justice and liberation is ongoing. [28]

Importance for Montgomery

Prior to the 1990s, there was limited acknowledgement in Montgomery of the painful legacy of slavery and racism, although the city had numerous monuments related to the Confederacy, many erected by private organizations. The city has developed a Civil Rights trail marking such events as the 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches, and identified buildings and sites associated with slavery, such as the former market site. [30] With the opening of the monument, the city was ranked by the New York Times as its Top 2018 Destination. [31] Lee Sentell of the Alabama Department of Tourism acknowledged that the National Memorial offers a different and painful encounter: "Most museums are somewhat objective and benign...This one is not. This is aggressive, political. ... It's a part of American history that has never been addressed as much in your face as this story is being told". [30] Mayor Todd Strange suggested that the memorial offered "our nation's best chance at reconciliation". [32]

The opening celebrations, in May 2018, attracted thousands of people to Montgomery, [32] perhaps as many as 10,000. Artists who performed included Stevie Wonder, Patti LaBelle, and Usher; speakers included U.S. Congressman and civil rights movement activist John Lewis from Georgia. [33] Publishers of the Montgomery Advertiser , prompted by the establishment of the memorial, reviewed and formally apologized for its historic coverage of lynchings, which was often inflammatory against black victims, describing it as "our shame" and saying "we were wrong". [34] [35]

The memorial and its attendant museum are expected to generate heightened tourism for Montgomery, [36] even if it is dark tourism. [31] The Atlanta Journal-Constitution noted that, with the addition of the memorial and the museum, Montgomery and Atlanta together provide a narrative of African-American history, as the latter has sites associated with national Civil Rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and local history as well. [36] Tourism officials said that possibly 100,000 extra visitors per year may arrive. [37] [38]

The Legacy Museum

A collection of soil from lynching sites across the United States on display at The Legacy Museum. Lynched in Alabama eji, Montgomery (37973228785).jpg
A collection of soil from lynching sites across the United States on display at The Legacy Museum.

Opened on the same date as the outdoor memorial, The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is a museum that displays and interprets the history of slavery and racism in America, with a focus on mass incarceration and racial inequality in the justice system. [17]

The museum features artwork by Hank Willis Thomas, Glenn Ligon, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Titus Kaphar, and Sanford Biggers. One of its displays is a collection of soil from lynching sites across the United States, a step in EJI's Community Remembrance Project. [8] This exhibit expresses the vast effects of slavery, lynchings, and black oppression across state lines. The exhibits in the 11,000-square-foot museum include oral history, archival materials, and interactive technology. [39]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dallas County, Alabama</span> County in Alabama, United States

Dallas County is a county located in the central part of the U.S. state of Alabama. As of the 2020 census, its population was 38,462. The county seat is Selma. Its name is in honor of United States Secretary of the Treasury Alexander J. Dallas, who served from 1814 to 1816.

A torture murder is a murder where death was preceded by the torture of the victim. In many legal jurisdictions a murder involving "exceptional brutality or cruelty" will attract a harsher sentence if the killing is not sanctioned by authorities or carried out by state security forces themselves.

<i>Montgomery Advertiser</i> Daily newspaper in Montgomery, Alabama

The Montgomery Advertiser is a daily newspaper and news website located in Montgomery, Alabama. It was founded in 1829.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Letohatchee, Alabama</span> Unincorporated community in Alabama, United States

Letohatchee is an unincorporated community in Lowndes County, Alabama, United States. It has a very small population and four businesses. The community is part of the Montgomery Metropolitan Statistical Area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bryan Stevenson</span> American lawyer and social justice activist

Bryan Stevenson is an American lawyer, social justice activist, law professor at New York University School of Law, and the founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative. Based in Montgomery, Alabama, he has challenged bias against the poor and minorities in the criminal justice system, especially children. He has helped achieve United States Supreme Court decisions that prohibit sentencing children under 18 to death or to life imprisonment without parole. He has assisted in cases that have saved dozens of prisoners from the death penalty, advocated for the poor, and developed community-based reform litigation aimed at improving the administration of criminal justice.

The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a non-profit organization, based in Montgomery, Alabama, that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and others who may have been denied a fair trial. It guarantees the defense of anyone in Alabama in a death penalty case.

Austin Callaway, also known as Austin Brown, was a young African-American man who was taken from jail by a group of six white men and lynched on September 8, 1940, in LaGrange, Georgia. The day before, Callaway had been arrested as a suspect in an assault of a white woman. The gang carried out extrajudicial punishment and prevented the youth from ever receiving a trial. They shot him numerous times, fatally wounding him and leaving him for dead. Found by a motorist, Callaway was taken to a hospital, where he died of his wounds.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Legacy Museum</span>

The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration is a museum in Montgomery, Alabama, that displays the history of slavery and racism in America. This includes the enslavement of African-Americans, racial lynchings, segregation, and racial bias.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kwame Akoto-Bamfo</span> Ghanaian sculptor (born 1983)

Kwame Akoto-Bamfo is a multi-disciplinary artist, educator and activist, known for his sculptures and massive body of works dedicated to the memory, healing and Restorative Justice for people of African descent. His outdoor sculptures are dedicated to the memory of the victims of the Transatlantic slave trade, notably the installation Nkyinkim, on display at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice that opened in 2018 in Montgomery, Alabama. His other sculptures include an installation of 1,200 concrete heads representing Ghana's enslaved ancestors in Accra, the capital of Ghana. Called Faux-Reedom, it was unveiled in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Levi Harrington</span> African American who was lynched in the U.S.

Levi Harrington was a young African-American who, on April 3, 1882, was abducted from police custody by a large white mob of several hundred participants and lynched in Kansas City, Missouri, hanged from a beam on the Bluff Street Bridge and shot. This followed the fatal shooting of a police officer, Patrick Jones, earlier that day. The next day another man, George Grant, was accused of the crime, and Harrington was declared innocent. However, the evidence against Grant was so weak that he was reportedly tried and acquitted three times and accepted a 2-year prison sentence in a plea bargain on the fourth trial.

John Henry James was an African-American man who was lynched near Charlottesville, Virginia on July 12, 1898, for having allegedly raped a white woman. James had no known family in the area, and had lived in Charlottesville for only five or six years. He was an ice cream seller; "nothing else is known of him."

Elmore County is a county located in the east-central portion of the U.S. state of Alabama. Throughout its history, there have been many lynchings in the county including on July 2, 1901, when a local mob lynched Robert White. In a strange turn of events, a local farmer, George White confessed in court to the killing and named five other local men as killers. Three men were convicted in the killing and sentenced to ten years in prison. On 9 June 1902, they were pardoned by Governor Jelks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of James and Alonzo Green</span>

Father and son Alonzo and James D. Green were innocent African-Americans lynched near Round Oak and Wayside, Jones County, Georgia in retaliation for the murder of popular white farmer Silas Hardin Turner on July 4, 1915. A third man, William Bostick was also lynched on this day. None of those killed received a trial.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of Eugene Daniel</span>

On September 18, 1921, 16-year-old Eugene Daniel was lynched for walking into a white girl's bedroom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of William Turner</span> 1921 Arkansas lynching

An 18-year-old African American named William Turner was lynched on November 18, 1921, in Helena, Arkansas, for an alleged assault on a 15-year-old white girl. Two years earlier hundreds of African-Americans were killed during the Elaine Race Riot in Hoop Spur, a nearby community also in Phillips County, Arkansas.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching of George Ward</span> Lynching of a black man in Indiana

A mob of white Vigo County, Indiana residents lynched George Ward, a black man, on February 26, 1901 in Terre Haute, Indiana, for the suspected murder of a white woman. An example of a spectacle lynching, the event was public in nature and drew a crowd of over 1,000 white participants. Ward was dragged from a jail cell in broad daylight, struck in the back of the head with a sledgehammer, hanged from a bridge, and burned. His toes and the hobnails from his boots were collected as souvenirs. A grand jury was convened but no one was ever charged with the murder of Ward. It is the only known lynching in Vigo County. The lynching was memorialized 120 years later with a historical marker and ceremony.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lynching in Posey County, Indiana</span>

On October 11, 1878, Jim Good, Jeff Hopkins, Ed Warner, William Chambers, and Dan Harris, Sr. were lynched in Posey County, Indiana, near the town of Mount Vernon. These men, who were allegedly connected to the robbery of a brothel, were killed by a white mob who broke into the jail where they were being held. Two other men, Dan Harris, Jr. and John Harris, were also lynched in the days leading up to October 11, in connection with the same alleged offense. This racial terror lynching is the largest reported lynching in Indiana's history.

Bud Rowland and Jim Henderson, two Black men, were lynched in Rockport, Indiana on December 16, 1900. The following day, Joe Holly was lynched in Boonville, Indiana for the same alleged crime.

The Wicomico Truth and Reconciliation Initiative (WTRI) is a movement in Wicomico County, Maryland, United States, to address the community's history of white supremacy through education and advocacy. The organization was formed in 2018 by James Yamakawa and Amber Green.

References

  1. ↑ Capehart, Jonathan (December 21, 2016). "What the lynching memorial will force us all to face". The Washington Post . Retrieved January 15, 2017.
  2. 1 2 "The Memorial for Peace and Justice". Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved June 11, 2020.
  3. 1 2 Campbell Robertson (April 25, 2018). "A Lynching Memorial Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It". The New York Times .
  4. ↑ Kennicott, Philip (April 24, 2018). "Review | A powerful memorial in Montgomery remembers the victims of lynching". The Washington Post . Retrieved April 14, 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "The National Memorial for Peace and Justice". Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice. Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  6. ↑ "Lynching in America Report". Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  7. ↑ "EJI's Community Remembrance Project". Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved April 19, 2022.
  8. 1 2 Miller, James H. (April 16, 2018). "Alabama memorial confronts America's racist history". The Art Newspaper . Retrieved April 20, 2018.
  9. ↑ Robertson, Campbell (April 25, 2018). "A Lynching Memorial Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It". The New York Times. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
  10. ↑ "Lynching in America Report". Equal Justice Initiative. Retrieved April 27, 2022.
  11. ↑ Robertson, Campbell (February 10, 2015). "History of Lynchings in the South Documents Nearly 4,000 Names". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved April 26, 2018.
  12. ↑ "Equal Justice Initiative's report". Equal Justice Initiative's report. Retrieved April 26, 2018.
  13. 1 2 Weber, Tom (June 5, 2018). "National lynching memorial: A jarring, but understandable error to remember Duluth victim". Minnesota Public Radio . Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  14. ↑ Robertson, Campbell (April 25, 2018). "A Lynching Memorial Is Opening. The Country Has Never Seen Anything Like It". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  15. ↑ Cotter, Holland (June 1, 2018). "A Memorial to the Lingering Horror of Lynching". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved April 8, 2022.
  16. ↑ Song, Jean (August 16, 2016). "Alabama lynching memorial aims to confront ramifications of slavery". CBS News . Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  17. 1 2 Wright, Barnett (April 19, 2018). "What's inside Montgomery's national peace and slave memorial museum opening April 26". Birmingham Times . Retrieved April 21, 2018.
  18. ↑ Edgemon, Erin (August 16, 2016). "Nation's first memorial to lynching victims, museum set for Montgomery". The Birmingham News . Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  19. ↑ "EJI Announces Plans to Build Museum and National Lynching Memorial". Equal Justice Initiative. August 16, 2016. Retrieved August 23, 2016.
  20. ↑ "A New National Memorial To Victims Of Lynching". 1A . April 24, 2018. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  21. ↑ Cosgrove, Adenike (April 22, 2018). "Artist Spotlight: Hank Willis Thomas, United States". Imodara magazine. Retrieved May 2, 2018.
  22. ↑ Brown, DeNeen L. (April 26, 2018). "Ida B. Wells: Lynching museum, memorial honors woman who fought lynching". The Washington Post. Retrieved April 27, 2018.
  23. ↑ Henderson, Nia-Malika (April 9, 2018). "This new lynching memorial rewrites American history". CNN. Retrieved April 12, 2018.
  24. ↑ Edwards, Brian (May 23, 2018). "Montgomery County in talks to accept EJI monument". Montgomery Advertiser . pp. 1, 6A.
  25. ↑ Trent, Noelle (2019). "Museum and Exhibit Reviews". The Public Historian.
  26. ↑ Das, Jareh (July 29, 2020). "Kwame Akoto-Bamfo's Sculptural Installation in Ghana Re-Narrativizes the Transatlantic Slave Trade". Cultured.
  27. ↑ Matchan, Linda (2020). "Bearing witness to slavery: A sculpture's trans-Atlantic passage from Ghana to Alabama". The Boston Globe .
  28. 1 2 3 Schult, Tanja (2020). "Reshaping American Identity: The National Memorial for Peace and Justice and its Take- Away Twin" (PDF). Liminalities: A Journal of Performance. 16: 45.
  29. ↑ Jones, Kevin (2020). "KPIX Anchor-Turned-Sculptor Contributes Piece to Lynching Memorial".
  30. 1 2 Elliott, Debbie (April 26, 2018). "New Lynching Memorial Is A Space 'To Talk About All Of That Anguish'". NPR . Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  31. 1 2 Baxter, Tom (June 4, 2018). "Dark Tourism: The world comes to Montgomery". Saporta Report. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  32. 1 2 "Montgomery: 'Where past, present and future intertwine'". Montgomery Advertiser . May 31, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  33. ↑ Brooks, Jalea (April 27, 2018). "National Memorial for Peace and Justice Grand Opening". Alabama News. Retrieved June 17, 2019.
  34. ↑ Lyman, Brian (April 20, 2018). "'There will be lynchings': How the Advertiser failed victims of racial terror". Montgomery Advertiser .
  35. ↑ Montgomery Advertiser Editorial Board (April 26, 2018). "Our shame: The sins of our past laid bare for all to see". Montgomery Advertiser .
  36. 1 2 "Heading to Montgomery? Make time for Atlanta's King sites". The Atlanta Journal-Constitution . Associated Press. May 16, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  37. ↑ Riales, Bill (May 17, 2018). "Lynching Museum could boost tourism". WKRG . Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  38. ↑ "Lynching memorial could turn Montgomery into tourist hot spot". The Birmingham News . Associated Press. May 16, 2018. Retrieved June 8, 2018.
  39. ↑ Dafoe, Taylor (April 26, 2018). "A Look Inside the New Alabama Museum and Memorial Boldly Confronting Slavery and Its Brutal Legacy". Artnet . Retrieved April 26, 2018.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.