EJI’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is a “Southern Living” top 25 place to visit
Freedom Monument Sculpture Park/Source: EJI
“Southern Living” magazine has named the Equal Justice Initiative’s Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery as a top 25 place to visit.
The park is featured in an article as one of the “Top Places to Go in the South” in 2025, alongside generations-old attractions such as the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville and Preservation Hall in New Orleans.
EJI opened the park in March of 2024 near the Alabama River close to downtown. The 17-acre site on Walker Street combines historical artifacts, contemporary art, original research and first-person narratives that explore the institution of slavery, the lives of enslaved people and the legacy of slavery in the U.S.
The park joined EJI’s other sites in downtown Montgomery — the expanded Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice.
The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park presents 170-year-old dwellings from cotton plantations, restraints and historical objects that represent the violence of slavery and replicas of critical structures like rail cars and holding pens enable a more detailed understanding of the experience of enslaved people. Bricks made by enslaved people 175 years ago can be seen and touched.
The National Monument to Freedom inside the park stands 43 feet tall and is 155 feet long. EJI says using research from the 1870 Census, which was the first time formerly enslaved Black people were able to formally record a surname, the monument individually lists more than 122,000 surnames that nearly five million Black people adopted at the time and that tens of millions of people now carry across generations.
The park’s location near the Alabama River is also significant. It is bordered by rail lines that EJI says were built by enslaved people. The river was also home to Indigenous Peoples who occupied the land for centuries before the arrival of Europeans in the 16th century, a history which is acknowledged at the park.
