The National Memorial for Peace and Justice


The National Memorial for Peace and Justice (also known as the National Lynching Memorial) is located in Montgomery, Alabama.  The memorial, which was founded by the Equal Justice Initiative, honors victims of lynching in the United States.  The memorial opened on April 26, 2018.  It is the first memorial in the U.S. dedicated to the legacy of enslaved African Americans and people terrorized by lynching.

The memorial includes 805 hanging steel rectangles which represent each of the counties where a documented lynching took place in the U.S.  Historical records indicate more than 4,400 people were lynched in the U.S. between 1877 to 1950.  These public acts of racial violence, which took place in 20 states, were intended to instill fear in African American communities.  Government leaders at the state and federal levels typically did not intervene to stop these acts of violence.  Racial terrorism in the American South led to a significant migration of African Americans out of the South to other parts of the United States.

“When a black person was lynched, they were not just lynching that person, they were targeting the entire African-American community,” says Bryan Stevenson – the Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative.  “Nobody thinks that the 9/11 perpetrators were just trying to kill only the people who worked at the World Trade Tower.  They were trying to terrorize the rest of us, and that’s the reason why we felt justified in fighting a war.  I look at the exodus of 6 million people who flee the American South during this period as victims of lynching, even though they weren’t strung up.  And in that respect, you have to use the word terrorism to characterize this violence,” Stevenson adds.

For more information about the National Memorial for Peace and Justice visit:

* “The Pain We Still Need to Feel” by Jamelle Bouie, May 1, 2018. https://slate.com/news-and-politics

* Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror compiled by the Equal Justice Initiative

* Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940 by Amy Louise Wood

* “100 Year of Lynchings” – a collection of contemporaneous news accounts  

Comments

  1. sybil18@aol.comNovember 10, 2018 at 6:25 PM

    The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is a somber and much needed reminder of the suffering of lynching victims and their communities. May no one ever again experience this historic tragedy.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Steven GilchristDecember 15, 2018 at 12:24 PM

    It is so crucial to remember the victims and to remind others of their stories. We should not forget these events, perhaps we can learn from them and not repeat these tragedies from occurring again.
    -Steven

    ReplyDelete

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