Sometimes a place is visceral. It touches you in a way you can’t quite describe, and you leave changed.
You shed tears at a place like this, the silence a weight you’ve never experienced.
The Memorial for Peace and Justice is one such place. A six acre permanent installation in Montgomery, AL, dedicated to the victims of lynching in the United States. This memorial is pure, devastating art. An acknowledgement of the worst of humanity’s actions in this country, and all that was done to brush aside the atrocities.
A collaboration between MASS and the Equal Justice Initiative, the installation walks visitors through 800 steel structures, each with a record of the county and individuals murdered there.
As you exit the memorial, the tone changes. The idea of freedom, and the responsibility it brings, is the focal point. We know better, we do better. We don’t give up hope.
Despite what seem like insurmountable problems, community leaders at ground zero of the civil rights movement are still working, pushing the boundaries, and fighting rising tides of racism within our nation. And the men and women behind this memorial are doing it in the most rebellious way, through art.
These photographs don’t do it properly. And to some extent, I’m glad. Everyone should visit this memorial, confront the history, and act upon the findings themselves.
This place is resistance.