In Memoriam

Sacred Ground

This six-acre Memorial for Peace and Justice is definitely sacred ground … a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terror in America and its legacy.

Whenever possible, names among the 4,400+ African American men, women, and children who were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, or beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950 are inscribed on the 800 hanging six-foot monuments … one for each county in the United States. Sometimes the inscription reads unknown.

A Wall of Tears was dedicated to the thousands of unknown victims of terror. 

A Vision Emerges

The idea for the Memorial grew out of 2010 research conducted by staff members of the Equal Justice Initiative. They wanted to understand the terror and trauma created by lynching … a form of sanctioned violence against the Black Community.  

They hoped the Memorial would be a sober, meaningful site … utilizing sculpture and art … where people will gather and reflect on America’s history of racial inequality. It certainly does that.

Community Remembrance Project

This site is no static memorial. It’s possible for the broader community to be involved in a variety of ways to begin a necessary conversation that advances truth and reconciliation. You can learn about that here.

Anyone with information about a site where a lynching took place is encouraged to dig up dirt and add them to the memorial.

Anyone can initiate truth and reconciliation conversations in the communities where they live. I found these plaques from Ohio in the portion of the Museum devoted to this project.

Troubling

The escalating violence in our country necessitated a walk through a metal detector and a search of our purses and bags at both the Museum and the Memorial. The necessity to do that troubled me. I felt especially bad for the men at the Museum dealing with throngs of people entering at the same time … the opening at 9 am. I apologized to those men charged with this task … bemoaning the fact that this is necessary in 2023.

Once we entered the memorial area, I found myself most troubled by the inscriptions on plaques identifying the role white women played in justifying a lynching. In fact, the most depressing and troubling aspect of our whole trip for me was what these plaques documented.

There were so many of these, it was impossible to get a picture of all of them. Here are a few:

Challenging

White slave-holding men were permitted to rape black women slaves with impunity and father children with them. At the same time a black man could be lynched for looking admiringly at a white woman.

In their minds, this meant the black man wanted to rape the white woman and that had to be stopped. They had to protect “their” white women from the danger of receiving so much as a note from a black man … or woman.

Me thinks there was a lot of projection going on … “that’s what I do so it must be what you are intending to do.” Sick, sick, sick.

I have long known that a white woman’s tears are a threat to black men as well as the women who love them … even today this is true. After seeing those plaques, their discomfort made even more sense.

If the necessary conversations to advance truth and reconciliation are to be had, it seems to me we must learn to tolerate our discomfort at these “depressing” truths about race relations … without needing to protect our children from the discomfort of confronting the truth of our history … without women dissolving into tears.

We need to buck up! We have a looooooooooooong way to go.

On My Soapbox

Fear-based actions like those memorialized stem from an obsession with maintaining one’s own perceived superiority and power over anyone who is different from what is considered the norm. Fear of “the other” leads to a system of inequality, inequity, exclusion, and is maintained through subtle and despicable forms of violence.

In America, the norm is white and male. People who are different … a different color or nationality or language, the opposite sex (female), a different gender identity, a different personality style or temperament than what’s in vogue … any difference that doesn’t conform is subject to an increasing level of judgment … from avoidance, rejection, ostracism, and outlawing to annihilation through acts of physical violence. 

Laws were passed to make love and marriage between blacks and whites illegal and deadly. Those so obsessed with their own superiority stooped to any means to maintain the status quo.

Tactics of superiority-over, power-over violence can be found in people the world over … and within ourselves. If we aren’t vigilant, self-aware, and self-monitoring, we will act it out in small ways and large. It is insidious and increasing in intensity in our day. 

Some of the culprits are so wedded to their narrow view of humanity, they corrupt the whole perception of justice. It pains me that some even call themselves Christians. It is hard for me to fathom how they can so twist Jesus’ commandment to love one another … that this violence is escalating in 2023.

A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.  

~Jesus of Nazareth from John 13:34-35

When will we ever learn?

P.S. This line (necessary conversation that advances truth and reconciliation) was underlined in red without my doing anything to make it so. I had trouble creating this post and had to delete the first try and start again. These words were in red again. I think the Universe is sending a message that needs emphasizing.