Legacy Sites: Racial Injustice Memorial

The Legacy Sites in Montgomerey incorporates three distinctly individual and interconnected spaces that remember and honour the historic racial injustices of black people in the Deep South. Legacy Sites are operated by the Equal Justice Initiative.

 The Legacy Museum... 

• A powerful, immersive journey through America’s history of racial injustice. On the site of a cotton warehouse where black people were forced to labour in bondage, the Legacy Museum tells the story of racial injustice in America and its legacy through interactive media, first-person narratives, world-class art and data-rich exhibits.
• Travel through a comprehensive history of the destructive violence that shaped the nation, from enforced labour, to the era of Jim Crow and racial terror lynchings, to the current mass incarceration crisis, and find inspiration in our soaring Reflection Space and world-class art gallery.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice...              

• A sacred space for truth telling and reflection about racial terrorism and its legacy. On a hilltop overlooking Montgomery is the nation’s first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the legacy of Black Americans who were forced to labour, terrorised by lynching, humiliated by racial segregation, and presumed guilty and dangerous.
• More than 4,400 Black people killed in racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950 are remembered here. Their names are engraved on more than 800 corten steel monuments, one for each county where a racial terror lynching took place, that form the main structure of the memorial at the heart of this six-acre memorial.

Freedom Monument Sculpture Park...

• A 17-acre park brings together racial injustice history, narrative, large-scale sculptures, and contemporary art commissions from many of the greatest living artists to create a vast memorial space celebrating peace and justice.
• The park will features works by artists including Alison Saar and Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, alongside major sculptures from Wangechi Mutu, Rose B. Simpson, Theaster Gates, and Kehinde Wiley.
• The National Monument to Freedom is the highlight of the experience. Standing 43 feet tall and over 150 feet long, the Monument honours all four-million black people in enforced labour who were emancipated at the end of the Civil War by memorialising more than 120,000 unique surnames documented at the time.

• The plaza surrounding the National Monument features writings from Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass and James Weldon Johnson. Visitors will be able to honour those who suffered the terrible racial injustices by placing flowers in a stream that flows next to the Monument.

• Space for reflection, remembrance and contemplation will mark the conclusion of the journey through Freedom Monument Sculpture Park.

For more information on any of the above email alabama@deep-south-usa.com