Why a memorial to Lynching victims

Yesterday we started to speak about the work of Bryan Stevenson. He begins defending men on Georgia’s death row who cannot pay for an attorney.He moved to Alabama for several reasons,one of which is there are no public defenders for people on death row in Alabama. The only system is if the jurisdiction has a contract with private attorney to act as public defenders.Many times the amount reimbursed is $1,000.00 for out of court expenses,MAX.

So Bryan realizes this is a place of greatest need and starts his work here. It starts with slavery.

Here are a few of the plaques speaking to why people were lynched

Bryan realizes that the problem then and now is that these people have been dehumanized and that until we face this and acknowledge what was done and that the economy of the United States was dependent on this system ,we will never be able to deal with this race problem,be it black people ,Chinese people in the late 1800’s or Hispanic people currently this race problem will recur again and again.

Until we are willing to invest in people, our race problems will occur.

Warehouse to hold humans before they were sold. But to the slave traders buyers,sellers, owners etc,these people were not humans,they were another species.This is how you rationalize this economic system. It is a system dependent on slave labor,if no slaves the whole thing gets very expensive, as the poor whites know all too well, because they are trying to compete in the market place, against slave owners

You climb to the top and then work your way down through the memorial

Each Corten steel block represents a site in the United States where a race related Lynching took place,with the names ,and dates of the people who were lynched.

It was out of these types of horrific events,that individuals decided to do something to try and change what was going on.

Often with life threatening possibilities. I hope that my being here and learning will help me to have the courage a nd steel to do what is right and to stand up for those that need help.

Women like Sarah Keys, Claudette Colvin,Jo Anne Gibson, names you’ll learn about when you come down here,were the day to day reason the boycott was successful .

It is easy to be grateful and in awe of the MLK’s,The Brian Stevenson’s the Morris Dees’ and the Rosa Park’s. Without them driving and guiding this evolution in society does not occur.

Without the everyday people riding buses knowing they are going to be beaten and maybe killed, registering to vote,walking into school, the movement never takes it first steps.

It is by no means,close to being finished. We took a guided tour through the Troy University Rosa Parks museum, lead by the vice chancellor who had created the museum.

He told an important story.As a young man he is growing up in a small town in Rural Alabama.He worked in a restaurant where on numerous occasions he told black people to go around back, that they could not be served in the main room,that they had to use the”colored” restrooms.

He said both black and white knew this was the normal thing for this society, it wasn’t the right thing,but it was how things were done.

As he said these were the “tapes”that played in your head. He says thank god I joined the Air Force and learned that there are better ways to do things, that he was able to get an education and learn that there are many ways to do things. His thinking changed and his behavior changed.

He becomes good friends with Rosa Parks and many people involved on both sides of the civil rights fight, while developing this excellent museum. He says that he still has “those tapes” playing in his head. He says that he has spoken with many black people from that era, who still are not comfortable sitting in the front of a bus,or drinking from fountains where whites are drinking. He emphasizes that the important thing is that his behavior has changed and that it will take generations to get these tapes out of our systems. Everyday we we do something to erase the tapes is helping to change for the better.

As he said this is an evolutionary progress, which is why things like the voting rights act needs to still be fully in place,not cut down,because some states have behaved ok for 3-4 years.

I’m so glad we are here.

Paul