January 7, 2022
THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE
417 Caroline St, Montgomery, AL 36104
“The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, informally known as the National Lynching Memorial, is a national 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.” Wikipedia
About a year ago I saw a story on 60 Minutes about “The Lynching Memorial” and I remember thinking this was a site I needed to see. As the Memorial and the Legacy Museum are both the work of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), when I finished my tour of the museum, I boarded a free shuttle to the memorial.
From a distance the memorial is impressive, however, it isn’t until you get to the top of the hill next to the memorial that you begin to grasp the magnitude of what is being represented. There are 800 steel monuments, each the size and shape of a coffin. Each monument names a county (and state) where a documented lynching took place in the United States. The name of the victim (if known) and the date the lynching took place are engraved on the panels. On the first side of the memorial the monuments are on your same level, when you get to the second side you start walking downhill. It is then that it hits you, the monuments are suspended, hanging as if they were lynched. Soon you are walking beneath the monuments and stories on the walls give examples of why some people were lynched. It is all very sobering. In the center of the monuments is a grass-filled square, representing the public areas where many lynching took place in front of crowds.
On the grounds outside the memorial there are steel columns corresponding to the monuments hanging in the memorial. EJI is encouraging each county to claim their monument and establish a memorial on home ground to lynching victims, and to conduct related public education.
I have been to many memorials and this one evokes emotions the same way the Viet Nam Memorial in Washington, DC and the 9/11 Memorial in New York City do.
As I stated with The Legacy Museum, if you are in the area, you need to visit the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.
