MEMORIALIZING A MORE REPRESENTATIVE HISTORY

A central aim of the EJI when constructing the memorial and museum was to challenge the “distorted national narrative” and acknowledge “the harms borne by the African American Community.”Footnote ⁴ The founder of EJI, Bryan Stevenson, stresses the importance of this aim through expressing how the American South's “littered landscape” of romanticized “iconography of the Confederacy” has left the country “vulnerable to replicating those features of white supremacy that we've actually never repudiated.”Footnote ⁵ Here, the very decision to construct the lynching site in Alabama became a political act of defiance in and of itself. It revealed how, despite efforts of southern state officials to protect a fanciful picture of its past, this is a memorialization that a vast number of people do not adopt and are determined to challenge. As Paul Stock asserts how spaces can become physical representations of “specific periods,” the NMPJ and accompanying museum serve as a direct exemplification of how memorialization surrounding lynching and America's darker past are changing.Footnote ⁶

The EJI's effort to promote a more representative history is displayed through the materiality of the EJI's Legacy Museum, which is located a short twenty-minute walk from the memorial.Footnote ⁷ Upon entry to the museum, visitors are met with a projected black-and-white image of the American flag which reads, “from enslavement to mass incarceration.”Footnote ⁸ The symbolic importance of embedding this message within the American flag should not be downplayed. It functions as a visual expression of how the violence of white supremacy remains woven within the very identity of the country, juxtaposed against Alabama's romanticized iconography of the Confederacy which the current governor, Kay Ivey, remains committed to protect.Footnote ⁹ In doing so, the EJI utilizes the museum as a political tool to encourage the visitor to recognize the long-lasting legacies that enslavement continues to have across society. The colour of the icon reasserts this discomforting truth, both visually and metaphorically, in black and white.

The unsettling connection made between America's identity and practices of white supremacy is enforced not just artistically, but spatially. One aspect of the museum display includes wallpaper of a brick wall which asserts, “you are standing on a site where enslaved people were warehoused.”Footnote ¹⁰ Immediately, the destination of the museum, and Alabama State more broadly, are made synonymous with the immoral institution of slavery. Not least because, for a visitor unaware of this fact, it becomes incredibly difficult to disassociate oneself from this truth as one is physically standing in the same spot where the atrocities of slavery took place. The EJI leaves no space for distraction, as exemplified in the various reviews left by visitors, who have described the space as “deeply moving” and “heart-breaking.”Footnote ¹¹ Evidently, the museum not only represents an emerging memorialization of a less sanitized history of America, but also encourages others to embrace the same. Here, the EJI successfully materializes David Olusoga's refusal to advocate histories which create “a place of greater safety.”Footnote ¹² Clearly, a memorialization of these more representative histories does not need to remain confined within scholarly textbooks.

Whilst on the surface these displays do not seem to be referring directly to lynchings, an acknowledgement of them as broader examples of white supremacy allows them to speak to their interconnectedness with the incident. Woodley suggests this is practically enforced through the physical journey the EJI encourages the museum's visitor to embark on.Footnote ¹³ Reflecting on her visit, Woodley highlights,

Physically surrounded by all of the museum's content, the visitor is forced to acknowledge the wider significance of lynchings, reflecting on “what Saidiya Hartman calls the ‘afterlife of slavery.’”Footnote ¹⁵ Such a reckoning is integral to not reproducing the very same romanticized picture the EJI sets out to critique. If the EJI had focussed solely on lynchings, visitors would have had an easier time disassociating themselves from the event, categorizing white supremacy as something of the past. Instead, by asserting the contemporary ramifications that white supremacy continues to have in the form of mass incarceration, a sense of moral responsibility and urgency is handed to the visitor to both acknowledge and spread a more representative memorialization of America's past. Considering the museum's power here, it comes as little surprise that journalist Campbell Robertson has labelled it “a companion piece to the memorial.”Footnote ¹⁶

The sheer scale of the Lynching Memorial serves best to acknowledge the magnitude of the lynchings which took place across America.Footnote ¹⁷ In the middle of the Lynching Memorial is a cloister of eight hundred hanging steel columns.Footnote ¹⁸ Engraved onto each of these “weathered” columns you can find the name of an American county and the victims lynched there, many of whom are “unknown.”Footnote ¹⁹ Visitor Campbell Robertson describes it:

Standing under these heavy and tall cloisters, the visitor is forced into a state of inferiority. As a result, focus is solely on the thousands of lives lost in the terrible affair. Visitor Vanessa Croft comments on the memorial's power here, stating that “it's almost overwhelming how many of these people are represented; it's sobering.”Footnote ²¹ Such feelings are heightened through the stories provided alongside these columns, one of which is dedicated to Caleb Gadley, who was hung in Kentucky in 1894 for “walking behind the wife of his white employer.”Footnote ²² Alongside individualizing the victims of lynching, the unsettling nature of these stories helps to emphasize just how inhumane and unjustified lynchings were.

Through opting not to include photographs of lynchings alongside the cloisters, the EJI are able to maintain a great deal of sensitivity when addressing such a violent and troubling history. This conscious decision becomes all the more important when acknowledging Amy Wood's critique of how lynching photographs can serve to enforce processes of white supremacy, functioning “as visual proof for the uncontested ‘truth’ of white civilised morality over and against supposed Black bestiality and savagery.”Footnote ²³ By not displaying graphic images, the EJI do not confine lynching victims to a similar state of “inferiority,” or of “lawless mobs,” that is assigned to them.Footnote ²⁴ Here, the EJI's memorial exemplifies how a representative memorialization of America's past can be promoted whilst remaining sensitive. This level of empathy is further demonstrated through the fact that the memorial and the museum are a nonprofit organization, highlighting how the construction of the memorial has not been distorted by monetary incentives,Footnote ²⁵ in turn ensuring that the lives lost to lynching remain at the centre of this memorialization.

“DISENFRANCHISED GRIEF”

Kenneth Doka's theory of “disenfranchised grief” describes an “experience by those who incur a loss that is not, or cannot be, openly acknowledged, publicly mourned or socially supported.”Footnote ²⁶ Considering such, Woodley asserts that the memorial's sensitive characteristics encourage visitors – both Black and white – to mourn.Footnote ²⁷ This process of mourning is best promoted through the memorial's cemetery-like characteristics. Reflecting on this, Woodley describes “frequent signs around the site, reminding visitors it is a ‘sacred place’ and asking them to be ‘respectful’. Visitors generally seem to take heed of this; on my visits the atmosphere was muted.”Footnote ²⁸ Woodley's experiences of mourning are not an isolated case. After touring the memorial, Montgomery native and African American Wretha Hudson reflected how “to me, this is more than just a memorial. It's also a sacred place because my ancestors paid the ultimate price.”Footnote ²⁹ For many African Americans, the journey around the memorial becomes a deeply personal journey, providing an opportunity for them to search for ancestors whose lives could not be publicly grieved at their time of death. Woodley asserts that this has the power to “enfranchise Black grief.”Footnote ³⁰ Here, a sense of closure is offered not only to those directly related to lynching victims, but to the African American community more broadly.

What is important to stress is how this process of mourning is not limited to African Americans, but carried out by white visitors. Patricia from Lockport, New York left a review on TripAdvisor, sharing how “while this is a peaceful place, it is very emotional. I was blessed to have a very sensitive guide to help me understand my emotions as an old white lady and the savagery of what happened that this memorial was depicting.”Footnote ³¹ The importance of the memorial's power to evoke these “emotional” feelings should not be dismissed. Encouraging widespread grief, the memorial asserts that lynching victims are just as worthy of being mourned as white Americans. Whilst such facts are undeniable, this was not something widely accepted during the “spectacle” of lynching. In this sense, the memorial makes the previously “ungrievable” lives of lynching victims “grievable.” As Woodley argues, encouraging Americans to unite and grieve together here, the memorial can help promote racial justice.Footnote ³² Reflecting on the memorial, civil rights activist Jesse Jackson asserts that “for there to be reconciliation, both sides must be willing to reconcile. For there to be healing, you have to take the glass out of the wound.”Footnote ³³ Evidently, mourning the lives lost to the violence of white supremacy should not remain a task solely undertaken by African Americans, but is a widespread commitment. Only then can racial justices begin to be achieved. However, what Woodley fails to address is the issues that can arise with the memorial's efforts to promote such.

CONTINUOUS COMPLEXITIES

It is undeniable that the Lynching Memorial promotes widespread and respectful processes of mourning and memorialization. However, these practices do not always play out in reality. For some, engaging with the memorial has become a form of “entertainment.”Footnote ³⁴ Reflecting on a visit to the memorial, one African American, William Anderson, recalls witnessing “a white man taking photos of the columns,” reflecting, “I couldn't help but think, They're still taking photos.”Footnote ³⁵ The act of taking photographs should not be dismissed, as being able to disconnect from the sensitive nature of the memorial is an act of privilege in itself. Here, the memorial quickly transitioned from a sensitive space to one where, as Anderson reflects, “white onlookers engage in the spectacle of lynching.”Footnote ³⁶ The process of turning the site into a form of entertainment is not an isolated incident and can be further exemplified through visitor's reviews that label the space as a perfect “tourist destination” and “stunningly new outdoor memorial.”Footnote ³⁷ Whilst words such as “stunning” may be clumsy mishaps, they risk turning the suffering of lynching victims into a mere piece of art. Despite the EJI's attempts, practices of white supremacy and detachment continue to ensue.

The ramifications of such practices should not be downplayed, as they have proven to hinder the mourning process of African Americans. Anderson recalled, “I walked faster than I had to in order to outpace any white people around me who might distract me from my grief, which prevented me from taking time with the monument.”Footnote ³⁸ While such distraction may be unconscious, for many African Americans white visitors possess an implicit bias that can make sharing these spaces difficult. Clearly, the trauma of lynchings continues to hinder the African American experience, making their mourning extremely tenuous and vulnerable to a dichotomy similar to that which led to the event in the first place. Unfortunately, the fight for complete freedom is far from over.

A close examination of how people have not interacted with the space can also serve as a useful signifier of how complex America's memorialization surrounding lynching remains. Outside the walkway of eight hundred cloisters are replicas of the columns, “lined up in rows like coffins,” designed to be distributed to American counties where lynchings were committed.Footnote ³⁹ Research by the New York Times reveals how many counties have requested that their columns be collected.Footnote ⁴⁰ However, what becomes particularly troubling is that despite the memorial being constructed over six years ago, Lincoln and Larue are yet to collect their monuments, indicating a reluctancy to take ownership of their state's involvement in the terrible affair.Footnote ⁴¹ Despite all of the EJI's efforts, the memorial has become yet another opportunity for those in positions of power to opt not to engage with America's darker past. Clearly, America is far from being able to unite over the matter, demonstrating a need for further efforts like the EJI's to promote a more representative memorialization of America's past.