Memorial

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice was built in remembrance of the enslaved individuals terrorized by lynching.

"TRUE PEACE IS NOT MERELY THE ABSENCE OF TENSION; IT IS THE PRESENCE OF JUSTICE." - MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Let's take a journey through the memorial!

"...AND O MY PEOPLE, OUT YONDER, HEAR ME, THEY DO NOT LOVE YOUR NECK UNNOOSED AND STRAIGHT. SO LOVE YOUR NECK, PUT A HAND ON IT, GRACE IT, STROKE IT AND HOLD IT UP. AND ALL YOUR INSIDE PARTS THAT THEY'D JUST AS SOON SLOP FOR HOGS YOU GOT TO LOVE THEM. THE DARK, DARK LIVER - LOVE IT, AND THE BEATING HEART, LOVE THAT TOO. MORE THAN EYES OR FEET, MORE THAN LUNGS THAT HAVE YET TO DRAW FREE AIR. MORE THAN YOUR LIFE-HOLDING WOMB AND YOUR LIFE-GIVING PRIVATE PARTS, HEAR ME NOW, LOVE YOUR HEART. FOR THIS IS THE PRIZE." - TONI MORRISON

The above pictures show statues of what would have been individuals brought over from Africa for slavery. One woman holds a child while another is pregnant. They are shackled at the ankles, wrists, and throat, each in their own agony. The woman holding the child is reaching towards a man that is the only one not connected to the rest of them. It could be assumed that he was the father of her child and slavery was separating them.

When you first walk into the maze of the memorial you can't help but see these memorial plaques. Placed in a window stack alignment, viewers are in a way forced to see them and know what happened in these places. While some places may be more well known for this kind of violent history, others may come as a shock to some. It is the intent that none should be forgotten and lost in history.

The above two photos are symbolic of death. The left photo gives an imagery of the massive number of hangings that occurs. The right photo looks like a cemetery with each box being the figure of a body or coffin.

On the walls you see plaques with names (if known) of individuals and a description of why they were lynched and what happened to them. Below are a few examples:

After Calvin Mike voted in Calhoun County, Georgia, in 1884, a white mob attacked and burned his home, lynching his elderly mother and his two young daughters, Emma and Lillie.
Jim Eastman was lynched in Brunswick, Tennessee, in 1887 for not allowing a white man to beat him in a fight.
Warren Powell, 14, was lynched in East Point, Georgia, in 1889 for "frightening" a white girl.
A black man was lynched in Millersburg, Ohio, in 1892 for "standing around" in a white neighborhood.

After a white man attempted to assault Jack Brownlee's daughter in Oxford, Alabama, in 1894, Mr. Brownlee was lynched for having the man arrested.
Robert Morton was lynched in Rockfield, Kentucky, in 1897 for writing a note to a white woman.
Calvin Kimblern was lynched by a mob of at least 3,000 people in Pueblo, Colorado, in 1900.
Fred Alexander, a military veteran, was lynched and burned alive before thousands of spectators in Leavenworth, Kansas, in 1901.

Elias Clayton, Isaac McGhie, and Elmer Jackson were lynched by a mob of 10,000 people in Duluth, Minnesota, in 1920.

These are but a few examples, but you can see that the reasoning for their lynchings would be seen as ridiculous today, and for some it is incredible and terrifying to think that there would have been thousands of white people trying to kill only a few black people.

"THOUSANDS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE UNKNOWN VICTIMS OF RACIAL TERROR LYNCHINGS WHOSE DEATHS CANNOT BE DOCUMENTED, MANY WHOSE NAMES WILL NEVER BE KNOWN. THEY ARE ALL HONORED HERE."

"On multiple occasions in 1955, black women were arrested for challenging Montgomery's law requiring racial segregation on buses. The arrest of Rosa Parks sparked a mass protest that launched the modern civil rights movement and brought to prominence a young pastor named Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. For nearly a year, black people in Montgomery boycotted the buses and challenged racial segregation in court, sustained by the courage of black women who collectively walked thousands of miles to end racial segregation in public transportation. You are standing in the neighborhood where model civil rights activism in America was born." - Dana King (b.1960), Guided By Justice, 2018, Bronze

"Black and brown people in the United States are often presumed dangerous and guilty when they have done nothing wrong. Out history of racial inequality has created conscious and unconscious bias that has resulted in racial discrimination against people of color by law enforcement and the criminal justice system. Police shootings of unarmed men, women, and children, racially biased and excessive sentencing of people of convicted crimes, and abusive prison conditions make mass incarceration a dominant issue for the poo and people of color.- Hank Willis Thomas (b.1976), Raise Up, 2016, Bronze

INVOCATION

"The wind brings your names. We will never dissever your names nor your shadows beneath each branch and tree.

The truth comes in on the wind, is carried by the water. There is such a thing as the truth. Tell us how you got over. Say, Soul look back in wonder.

Your names were never lost, each name a holy word. The rocks cry out -

call out each name to sanctify this place. Sounds in human voices, silver or soil, a moan, a sorrow song,

a keen, a cackle, harmony, a hymnal, handbook, chart, a sacred text, a stomp, an exhortation.

Ancestors, you will find us still in cages, despised and disciplined. You will find us mis-named.

Here you will find us despite. You will not find us extinct. You will find us here memoried and storied.

You will find us here mighty. You will find us here divine. You will find us where you left us, but not as you left us.

Here you endure and are luminous. You are not lost to us. The wind carries sorrows, sighs, and shouts.

The wind brings everything. Nothing is lost."

-Elizabeth Alexander

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