US lynching memorial seeks reflection on racist history

US lynching memorial seeks reflection on racist history
source: AFP

 GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Bob Miller Markers display the names and locations of individuals killed by lynching at the National Memorial For Peace And Justice in Montgomery, Alabama

A unique memorial remembering the thousands of black Americans lynched in public acts of torture opened Thursday in the southern US.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama, aims to promote reflection on the country's history of racial inequality, the reverberations of which are still felt today.

"This shadow cannot be lifted until we shine the light of truth on the destructive violence that shaped our nation, traumatized people of color, and compromised our commitment to the rule of law and to equal justice," Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) behind the project, says on the memorial's website.


GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Bob Miller DJ Briggs, 69, visits the National Memorial For Peace and Justice on its opening day


EJI, a non-profit legal assistance group, documented the lynching of more than 4,400 black people in the United States between 1877 and 1950.

While slavery lasted for centuries, "nothing sustained racial inequality more than lynching," it said on its website.

"Lynching was racial terrorism."

Set on a six-acre (2.4 hectare) site, the memorial contains 800 suspended steel monuments, one for each county where a lynching occurred. Each is engraved with the names of victims.


GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Bob Miller Markers display the names and locations of individuals killed by lynching at the National Memorial For Peace and Justice

Identical monuments in the surrounding field are "waiting to be claimed and installed in the counties they represent," the museum website said.

"Over time, the national memorial will serve as a report on which parts of the country have confronted the truth of this terror and which have not."

Sculptures of black men and women in chains are also displayed.

US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson, pictured on his Twitter account visiting the grassy memorial, said it "has exposed our dark history."

He said that despite 200 attempts, Congress has yet to pass an anti-lynching law.

"Congress must respond and pass legislation," he said on Twitter.

Although the United States ended racist policies decades ago, the legacy of discrimination can still be felt.
GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP / Bob Miller Wretha Hudson, 73, examines a monument recording lynchings in Lee County, Texas, one of 800 such markers at the National Memorial For Peace and Justice