Lynching memorial and museum in Alabama draw crowds, tears

MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Tears and expressions of grief met the opening of the nation’s first memorial to the victims of lynching Thursday in Alabama.

Hundreds lined up in the rain to get a first look at the memorial and museum in Montgomery.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice commemorates 4,400 black people who were slain in lynchings and other racial killings between 1877 and 1950. Their names, where known, are engraved on 800 dark, rectangular steel columns, one for each U.S. county where lynchings occurred.

A related museum, called The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, is opening in Montgomery.

Many visitors shed tears and stared intently at the commemorative columns, many of which are suspended in the air from above.

Toni Battle drove from San Francisco to attend. “I’m a descendant of three lynching victims,” Battle said, her face wet with tears. “I wanted to come and honor them and also those in my family that couldn’t be here.”

Ava DuVernay, the Oscarnominated film director, told several thousand people at a conference marking the memorial launch “to be evangelists and say what you saw and what you experienced here . ... Every American who believes in justice and dignity must come here ... Don’t just leave feeling like, ‘That was amazing. I cried.’ ... Go out and tell what you saw.”

As for her own reaction, DuVernay said: “This place has scratched a scab. It’s really open for me right now.”

Angel Smith Dixon, who is biracial, came from Lawrenceville, Georgia, to see the memorial.

“We’re publicly grieving this atrocity for the first time as a nation . ... You can’t grieve something you can’t see, something you don’t acknowledge. Part of the healing process, the first step is to acknowledge it.”

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, a longtime civil rights activist, told reporters after visiting the memorial that it would help to dispel America’s silence on lynching.

“Whites wouldn’t talk about it because of shame. Blacks wouldn’t talk about it because of fear,” he said.

The crowd included white and black visitors. Mary Ann Braubach, who is white, came from Los Angeles to attend. “As an American, I feel this is a past we have to confront,” she said as she choked back tears.

Singer Patti Labelle ended the evening with a soulful rendition of “A Change is Gonna Come.”