National Monument to Freedom, Montgomery, Alabama – Photo from Associated Press
Visitors arrive at the National Monument to Freedom on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 in Montgomery, Ala. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War's end. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
Visitors arrive at the National Monument to Freedom on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 in Montgomery, Ala. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War's end. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
National Monument to Freedom, Montgomery, Alabama – Photo from Associated Press
Gabriella Jackson, 7, and Erica Jackson,9, look for familiar names at the dedication of the National Monument to Freedom on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 in Montgomery, Ala. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War's end. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
Gabriella Jackson, 7, and Erica Jackson,9, look for familiar names at the dedication of the National Monument to Freedom on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 in Montgomery, Ala. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War's end. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
National Monument to Freedom, Montgomery, Alabama – Photo from Associated Press
Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, speaks with JoAnne Bland and other well-wishers after the dedication of the National Monument to Freedom on June 19, 2024, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
Bryan Stevenson, the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, speaks with JoAnne Bland and other well-wishers after the dedication of the National Monument to Freedom on June 19, 2024, in Montgomery, Ala. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
National Monument to Freedom, Montgomery, Alabama – Photo from Associated Press
People visit the National Monument to Freedom on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 in Montgomery, Ala. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War's end. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
People visit the National Monument to Freedom on Wednesday, June 19, 2024 in Montgomery, Ala. The monument is inscribed with 122,000 surnames that formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War's end. (AP Photo/Kim Chandler)
The Equal Justice Initiative celebrated Juneteenth by dedicating the National Monument to Freedom in EJI’s new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery.
The monument is 43 feet tall, 155 feet long and honors nearly five million formerly enslaved Black people and their tens of millions of descendants. It is inscribed with the last names of 122,000 Black families.
The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park near the Alabama River uses art and historical artifacts to tell the story of enslaved people in the United States.
“Enslaved people in this country did something remarkable that we need to acknowledge, that we need to recognize and that we need to celebrate. Enslaved people resisted. Enslaved people were resilient. Enslaved people found ways to make a way,” EJI founder and Executive Director Bryan Stevenson said.
Juneteenth commemorates June 19, 1865, the day enslaved people in Galveston, Texas, found out they were free after the Civil War. The news came two months after the end of the Civil War and about 2 1/2 years after the Emancipation Proclamation.
The 122,000 surnames are what formerly enslaved people chose for themselves, as documented in the 1870 Census, after being emancipated at the Civil War’s end. Those last names represent the more than 4 million enslaved people who were set free after emancipation.
The sculpture park is the third site created by EJI in Montgomery. The first two sites — the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a memorial to people slain in racial terror killings; and The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration — opened in 2018.
Dr. Michele R. Williams and her mother, Barbara Y. Williams, scanned the rows of names on Wednesday morning, looking for their family surname, Murdough.
“There’s a story connected to every single name and the families that they represent,” Michele Williams said. Their ancestor, a man named Moses, is believed to have lived in one of the two slave cabins that were taken from an Alabama plantation to become an exhibit at the sculpture park.
“It was just heart-wrenching, but also super-moving,” Michele Williams said of seeing the cabin.
The private dedication ceremony featured performances by the legendary Wynton Marsalis, classical clarinetist Anthony McGill from the New York Philharmonic and the Jason Max Ferdinand Singers.
(Copyright 2024 The Associated Press contributed to this report. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)
