she wonders. We deal with these huge disparities in our criminal justice system. The memorial will start as a path of cast or carved footprints. The (Un)Known Project is for all of them. The Equal Justice Initiative is also opening a Legacy Museum that draws a direct line from slavery to lynching to issues the country faces today, including mass incarceration. His is the last lynching listed for the city. Pierce was a white man accused of horse theft and murder. One of its displays is a collection of soil from lynching sites across the United States. Freedom lay on the other side of the river. Drake says she'd never heard about them before, and in reading more about them, she came across the following phrase: "Anything else about them is virtually unknown." The first memorial honoring the victims of lynching across the American South opens Thursday in Montgomery, Ala. "So there are people that were lynched, that they just don't know the names of them. This exhibit expresses the vast effects of slavery, lynchings, and black oppression across state lines. This episode of McHistory produced by WGLT's Mary Cullen tells of the gruesome death of Charles Pierce. ... NPR… "It's just right there, you can see it," Drake says. It's part of something called the (Un)Known Project, from Louisville artist-run nonprofit IDEAS xLab, where Drake is chief creative officer. In October 1881, a mob of residents incited the lynching. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened to the public on April 26, 2018, is the nation’s first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence. NPR New Lynching Memorial Is A Space 'To Talk About All Of That Anguish' The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opens Thursday in Montgomery, Ala., and includes monuments to victims of lynchings. Last Thursday, a memorial dedicated to thousands of victims of American lynchings opened in Montgomery, Ala. ... "This is not who we are." There's a lot of tension," he says. ... evoking the way many lynching victims were hung, often in public spaces. It's also for enslaved people whose names might be known, but their stories aren't. We deal with these huge disparities in our criminal justice system. There was a time when lynchings were treated like a parade through town or a big community event. They were a property so they were written down as a thing. The museum is downtown, in a building that was once a slave warehouse. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opens in Montgomery, Ala., this week and is devoted to the victims of lynching. America’s shameful history of lynching blazed into the spotlight with the recent opening of The National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama. There's a lot of tension," says Stevenson. (Lynsey Weatherspoon for NPR) "Legacies matter," says, Lamont Collins, founder of Roots 101. So this is not Hannah. Located on the site of a former warehouse where Black people were enslaved in Montgomery, Alabama, this narrative museum uses interactive media, sculpture, videography and exhibits to immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of the domestic slave trade, racial terrorism, the Jim Crow South, and the world’s largest prison system. The mob mercilessly beat the three young men. NPR host Sam Sanders disagrees. Then there will be more footprints leading to the river's edge. On August 7, 1930, a mob of ten to fifteen thousand whites abducted three young black men from the jail in Marion, Indiana, lynching Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith. The 11,000-square-foot museum is built on the site of a former warehouse where enslaved Black people were imprisoned, and is located midway between an historic slave market and the main river dock and train station where tens of thousands of enslaved people were … That will lead people from nearby history museums to the river, where there will be limestone benches. "There's a lot of conflict. The Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., honors more than 4,000 victims of lynchings, including Matthew Williams, who … "We're dealing with police violence. Standing on the banks of the Ohio River looking from Kentucky across to southern Indiana, poet and author Hannah Drake thinks about the enslaved people who stood here more than a century ago. "But on these pillars, they also stamp the word unknown," says Drake. BROOKE GLADSTONE: It’s a short walk from the Museum to EJI’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the lynching memorial. NPR’s sites use cookies, similar tracking and storage technologies, and information about the device you use to access our sites (together, “cookies”) to enhance your viewing, listening and user experience, personalize content, personalize messages from NPR’s sponsors, provide social media features, and analyze NPR’s traffic. This is the first national memorial to the victims of lynching in the United states and it opens Thursday in Montgomery, Ala. Poet and author Hannah Drake is working on a memorial dedicated to Black people whose names have been lost to history. Drake says everything kind of clicked together then. The national memorial for peace and justice sits on a … hide caption. Drake also visited former plantations in Kentucky and Mississippi. Sixty four years ago, an organized mob of more than 10,000 white men and women dragged Cameron and two other black teenage men from a jail cell in Marion, Indiana. There, they can sit on limestone benches looking out across the water from Kentucky to southern Indiana. She's shown above standing near the Ohio River in Louisville on July 23, 2020. She says she remembers stories about the lynching’s, and believes the number is higher than four. Some were even commemorated on picture postcards and mailed to … Drake says. "We wanted people to come here and sit and just acknowledge some things," Drake says. Drake says the project has many influences, including a visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, also known as the National Lynching Memorial in Alabama. You may click on “Your Choices” below to learn about and use cookie management tools to limit use of cookies when you visit NPR’s sites. Kentucky claimed neutrality during the Civil War, but it was a slave state. "That you have a young woman whose name would have surely been forgotten from history unless people started speaking her name over and over again.". It was Platt who reached out to Hannah Drake and IDEAS xLab about the Blackburns. Lucie and Thornton Blackburn escaped from Kentucky by way of the Ohio River and went on to build a successful taxi cab business in Canada. Courtesy of Dr. Fran Kaplan, Coordinator, America’s Black Holocaust Virtual Museum 4 of 4 See details. "There's a lot of conflict. The lynching memorial, the museum and the Legacy Pavilion are all operated by the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative, which announced the reopening in a statement. "This was our way to say we acknowledge that you were here. The Equal Justice Initiative is also opening a Legacy Museum that draws a direct line from slavery to lynching and to issues the country faces today, including mass incarceration. You existed, and we recognize that," Drake says. There was that word again: unknown. "There's a lot of conflict. Thomas Finch’s name is on the column for Fulton County, just before a victim from Roswell. When they wanted to escape to Indiana, what were they dreaming about?" In 2018, Stevenson and his organization opened the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Ala., both dedicated to the legacy of slavery, lynching, … Surviving a Lynching. The memorial is the … Drake says the project has many influences, including a visit to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, also known as the National Lynching Memorial in Alabama. "If you sit on the bench for five minutes, or you sit on the bench for five hours, I think seeing it will stir up something.". There's a lot of tension," he says. You can adjust your cookie choices in those tools at any time. You can take all that history and bring it out in so many ways.". He died on Sept. 12, 1936, in the center of Atlanta. Poet and author Hannah Drake is working on a memorial dedicated to Black people whose names have been lost to history. Nearby, a stretch of grass shaded by trees is the future site of a public art piece — a monument to Black people who were enslaved. Sixteen-year-old James Cameron narrowly survived after being beaten by the mob. The non-profit Equal Justice Initiative documented the names of … Stephanie Wolf/WFPL In 2018, the Equal Justice Initiative, a Montgomery-based legal advocacy group, opened the nation’s first memorial and museum to lynching victims. "We were the bulldozers before bulldozers, we were the back hammers before back hammers, and we the engineers before engineering degrees, and that's the beautiful thing about the (Un)Known Project. The memorial will lead people from nearby history museums to the bank of the Ohio River. "We're dealing with police violence. "I feel with Breonna Taylor and the whole say her name campaign, it's the very same thing." The memorial organizes the names of lynching victims by the counties where they were killed. The museum features artwork by Hank Willis Thomas, Glenn Ligon, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, Titus Kaphar, and Sanford Biggers. "Sadly, it is always the same story," she says. "We're dealing with police violence. Coinciding with that, the Frazier and Roots 101 African-American History Museum in Louisville will host exhibitions to help tell lesser known stories like the Blackburns and formerly enslaved Black people. "As said in the meeting, it’s a whole lot more than four. ", The memorial will lead people from nearby history museums to the bank of the Ohio River. "There was a noose outside the Capitol, and some of those folks had on T-shirts that read civil war. Because my father who--we lived out on the northeast part of town--he showed us a tree where he was familiar with lynching’s," Jefferson said. The … "If you just get across, then hopefully your entire life could be different. This is a negro gal.". hide caption. Every lynching, when it is known, every county, every date, every name is engraved on copper columns suspended from poles, higher and higher as you proceed through the site, so many. "What other stories are out there? Author and museum director James Cameron. "We don't have their names or their names weren't written down as a name. The plan is to install the benches and the footprints of (Un)Known Project artwork along the Ohio River next year. I think a number of people may have said, well, you know, there's this big museum in Washington, D.C., African-American History and Culture, that touches on some of these issues. Lynsey Weatherspoon for NPR. This information is shared with social media, sponsorship, analytics, and other vendors or service providers. The plan is to install the benches and the footprints of (Un)Known Project artwork along the Ohio River in 2021. The Equal Justice Initiative is also opening a Legacy Museum that draws a direct line from slavery to lynching to issues the country faces today, including mass incarceration. Lawrence Beitler’s photograph of the two victims’ hanging bodies is regarded as one of the most iconic images of an American lynching. Some call it the “lynching museum.” Russellville, Kentucky opened its own small lynching museum 10 years ago, the vision of one man who made a promise to tell the truth. `` there was a time when lynchings were treated like a parade through town or a big community event or. Wanted people to come here and sit and just acknowledge some things, '' Drake... Lynchings opened in Montgomery, Ala., on Thursday, a memorial dedicated to victims of victims. Do n't know the names of lynching victims above standing near the Ohio River in.... People to come here and sit and just acknowledge some things, '' Drake says, just before victim! 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