((PKG)) PEACE AND JUSTICE MEMORIAL
((Banner: Facing the Past))
((Reporter: Kane Farabaugh))
((Adapted by: Philip Alexiou))
((Map: United States // Montgomery, Alabama))
((Banner: A New Memorial Recognizes African American Victims of Lynching and Terror))
((NATS))
((ISOKE FEMI, VISITOR))
My experience in there is that it is so painful.
((REVEREND JESSE JACKSON, CIVIL RIGHTS LEADER))
5000 blacks were lynched between 1880 and 1940. We must face the truth of our origins. We are a post-genocidal, post-slavery, post-Jim Crow society.
((MARK POTOK, AUTHOR))
I have spent my career tracking racial terrorists today but, of course, that kind of terrorism is very small and almost insignificant compared to what it once was. So, you know, I know from living in Alabama for 20 years now, that it has been simply impossible to move ahead in this state because of the unwillingness of a lot of people, mostly whites, to really look at the past.
((ISOKE FEMI, VISITOR))
White supremacy was not just a terror on black community, it was a terror on white community. Because if you didn’t fit that mould, there was no way for you to express your difference. There was no way, and so what does that say? The love that it took to do this, the commitment, the courage, and the fact that everybody is here, that it’s not just something that black people are coming to. Everybody, even if they couldn’t form the words, they couldn’t say the words, they want the healing. They want the healing of America. They want their hearts to be set free.
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