Lynching Memorial Update
The Equal Justice Initiative announces the lynching memorial and museum for Montgomery.
Montgomery is steeped in history, but as Equal Justice Initiative founder Bryan Stevenson told the CBS Early Show last week, there is something missing.
“In Montgomery, there are 59 markers and monuments to the confederacy. Our two largest high schools are Robert E. Lee High and Jefferson Davis High. We don’t even have Martin Luther King Day, its Martin Luther King/Robert E. Lee Day. We are preoccupied with the mid-19th century history, but we won’t talk about slavery,” said Stevenson.
The lynching memorial located on Caroline Street, will be just blocks away from the historic site of one of the South’s largest slave auctions.
The EJI says it has identified more than four thousand lynchings of blacks in the U.S. from 1877 until 1950. Stevenson says he has received support from the community for the memorial.
“I’ve been really encouraged and thrilled by the support we’ve seen locally and I’m e
xcited to do something in Montgomery that I hope will become important to the nation and maybe to the world when it comes to how we make progress given our difficult history.”
Stevenson says about 30 percent of the fundraising is complete for the project.
He says the memorial and the museum exploring race in America will also be built in the groups headquarters in downtown.
Both are set to open sometime in 2017.
