You can see a portrait of arch-segregationist Gov.
You can stand on the spot where Jefferson Davis was inaugurated president of the CSA - it’s marked with a golden star on the marble steps of the Capitol. It might seem odd to find this beautiful, uncompromising monument here on a green hill here in Montgomery, the first capital of the Confederacy, of antebellum verandas and white pillars. White people’s refusal to admit that America has not been and is not now a paragon of virtue, “great” because she is “good,” a nation specially blessed by God, instead of a country with brilliant founding documents which has not yet lived up to its promises nor dealt with its painful past. Is it any wonder that conservatives don’t want this history taught in schools?Īn Installation by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo. Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees.” They are initially at eye-level, but the floor gradually slopes downward until the columns hang over your head, an unsubtle but powerful reminder of how so many died.īlood on the leaves and blood at the root,īlack bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze, Those are only three of the thousands of names written on the 800 columns at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a place that only opened in 2018 but feels as ancient and as sacred as Stonehenge, a silent but devastating testimony to how Americans terrorized and murdered other Americans for wanting to live as full citizens of this country.Īs you go further into the National Memorial, the columns, all bolted to the ceiling, seem to lift themselves off the floor. Then you begin to see the names inscribed on the columns: Claud Neal, Jackson County, Fla., lynched in 1934 for the alleged rape and murder of a white woman Joe Coe, Douglas County, Neb., lynched in 1891 for allegedly assaulting a white child Emmett Till, Leflore County, Miss., lynched in 1955 for flirting with a white woman.
It takes a minute to adjust to the dim light.
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