Hey, GOP, there's a museum in Montgomery y'all really oughta see
A great article by a super writer. I made the trip to see this museum when it opened. It rivals the Vietnam Memorial Wall in its sheer emotional power. On this trip, my friends and I also visited the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Rosa Parks Museum, and Dexter Baptist Church where Dr. ML King began his preaching career.
https://floridaphoenix.com/2021/08/23/hey-gop-theres-a-museum-up-in-montgomery-yall-really-ought-to-see/
MONTGOMERY — You walk out of the fierce summer sun into a shadowy forest of rectangular steel columns, row upon row of them, six or seven feet tall, covered in rust the color of dried blood.
It takes a minute to adjust to the dim light. Then you begin to see the names inscribed on the columns: Claud Neal, Jackson County, Fla., lynched in 1934 for the alleged rape and murder of a white woman; Joe Coe, Douglas County, Neb., lynched in 1891 for allegedly assaulting a white child; Emmett Till, Leflore County, Miss., lynched in 1955 for flirting with a white woman.
Those are only three of the thousands of names written on the 800 columns at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a place that only opened in 2018 but feels as ancient and as sacred as Stonehenge, a silent but devastating testimony to how Americans terrorized and murdered other Americans for wanting to live as full citizens of this country.
As you go further into the National Memorial, the columns, all bolted to the ceiling, seem to lift themselves off the floor. They are initially at eye-level, but the floor gradually slopes downward until the columns hang over your head, an unsubtle but powerful reminder of how so many died.
As the song goes:
“Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swingin’ in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hangin’ from the poplar trees.”
Is it any wonder that conservatives don’t want this history taught in schools?
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"Never forget"
