A sobering museum
A few years ago, I was traveling through Montgomery, Alabama and we stopped at The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. It is a museum dedicated to the memory of those in the US that lynched in the United States.
More than 4400 African American men, women, and children were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. Millions more fled the South as refugees from racial terrorism, profoundly impacting the entire nation. Until now, there has been no national memorial acknowledging the victims of racial terror lynchings. On a six-acre site atop a rise overlooking Montgomery, the national lynching memorial is a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terror in America and its legacy.source
There are 800 of these structures hanging from the ceiling of the museum as you walk around the 6 acres that the museum spans. Each one represents a county in the United States where someone was lynched.
This was a very sobering experience as I walked through the museum grounds and read about the different people that were lynched and what they were killed for. It is a very educational place that leaves an impact on your after you leave.
We must never forget the past. Places like this are a much needed place to educate people, to help prevent anything like this ever happening again.
