How racial terrorism shaped U.S.
Lynching museum helps us come to grips with our dark history
Iwas among the first people to walk under 800 weathered steel columns — one for each county in which a documented lynching occurred. It was a heart-wrenching, soulful, and eyeopening experience. Seeing individual stories and the thousands of names of those whose lives were taken, I reflected on the immense pain inflicted on the families, friends, and communities of those killed and how our society tolerated such public brutality for so long.
The new National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., is a national treasure. It gives all Americans the opportunity to reflect, mourn and learn from the horrors of lynching and its effects on our communities across America.
Like many white Americans, I have ancestors who fought on both sides of the Civil War. When traveling through the South, I can’t help but notice the hundreds of Confederate monuments in towns small and large, and notice the absence of memorials recognizing the atrocities committed in the name of white supremacy.
My father’s ancestors came over on the Mayflower. My mother emigrated from Munich in the 1970s. That background has given me a unique perspective on how Germany and America have dealt with the darkest moments in their histories.
When I visit my relatives in Bavaria, I’m consistently struck by how open, intentional and forthright Germany is about the Holocaust. If you walk down the cobblestone streets of Berlin, you’ll notice golden bricks below your feet, marking the homes of Jewish families who were killed in the Holocaust. German children are taught extensively about the mass extermination of 6 million Jewish people in school, public events are held to never forget the violence of the Third Reich and millions of people from all over the world visit Dachau, Auschwitz and other concentration camps to see in detail the horrors of what occurred on that land.
In America, we have a discomfort with confronting our painful history of slavery, lynching and a century of forced segregation. Walking through the new Montgomery memorial, I was struck by just how recent the era of mass lynching is. Along the wall lining the main hall in the memorial is a row of small black plaques that give a glimpse into where, why and by whom some of the murders were done. The last one reads, “Robert Mallard, a prosperous farmer, was lynched near Lyons, Georgia, in 1948 for voting.” Although critics of the memorial say that it’s simply dredging up distant history, most Americans are only a generation removed from the era of lynching.
A visit to the memorial is particularly important in our current era of heightened racial tension. The shadow cast by slavery, lynching and segregation affects all Americans. It has a particularly profound impact on the wealth and status of African American communities, and influences how all of us see our friends, neighbors, co-workers, bosses and politicians. The lack of trust between communities of color and police departments, major corporations like Starbucks and their customers, and the president and many minorities must be understood in the context of the complicated story of race in America.
If we are ever going to heal our divisions as a country, we have to begin by acknowledging the most painful moments of our past and understanding how our shared history has shaped us as a society.
Bryan Stevenson, executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and a lawyer who represents death row inmates, is the leading force behind the memorial. He has said, “If I believe that each of us is more than the worst thing he’s ever done, I have to believe that for everybody.”
I believe this extends to America itself. But forgiveness, justice and mercy require first confronting truths that many would like to forget.
So take your children to see the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and talk to them honestly about our nation’s past, just as my younger German cousins are taken to see the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s patriotic.