I traveled with my friend Ann Darby to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the accompanying Museum in Montgomery Alabama this week. I felt somber, sad, angry and profoundly moved by the large number of hanging panels in memory of people lynched in the United States. Each panel contained the name and date of hanging of each individual who lost his or her life in a single county. Other sculptures on the site memorialized the slave and oppression experiences of African Americans. Outside the primary Memorial building we saw duplicate panels waiting for residents to raise funding and arrange to take them to the home counties named.
The separate museum downtown did not allow pictures, but it contained audiovisual displays of the slave experience and the history of slave trade in the United States. Although small in actual area, the message overwhelmed and profoundly moved me. I strongly recommend you visit this Museum and Memorial yourself, because I cannot duplicate the experience in words and pictures.
