National Memorial for Peace and Justice - A Monument for Every County

Photo: Soniakapadia, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)

A stop on Montgomery: Legacy and Civil Rights Road, a free self-guided tour.

On this six-acre site, EJI created the first national memorial to the Black people killed in racial terror lynchings, opened in April 2018. From the end of Reconstruction to the middle of the twentieth century, mobs killed thousands of Black men, women and children, almost always without trial or punishment, to enforce segregation and silence.

The memorial square holds 805 steel monuments, one for each American county where EJI documented a racial terror lynching, each engraved with the names of the people who died there. As you walk, the floor gradually slopes down while the monuments stay in place, until they hang above you and you must look up to read them.

Outside the square, a matching duplicate of each monument lies in long rows, waiting. EJI invites every county to claim its own and set it up at home, as a public act of truth-telling. Look too for sculptures by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, Dana King and Hank Willis Thomas. Admission is included in the Legacy Sites pass.

Getting here: Walk about 10 minutes south from Court Square to the entrance at 417 Caroline Street, or ride the free Legacy Sites shuttle from the museum.

Did you know?: As the memorial opened in 2018, the Montgomery Advertiser published an apology for the way the newspaper had covered lynchings in the past.

Photo op: From the edge of the memorial square, frame a long row of steel monuments receding into the distance; photograph quietly and leave room for others to reflect.

More on Wikipedia: National Memorial for Peace and Justice · Lynching in the United States · Kwame Akoto-Bamfo · Hank Willis Thomas

National Memorial for Peace and Justice - A Monument for Every County

Stops on this tour