Today, Juneteenth, began at The Legacy Museum – a place which masterfully both walks visitors through the horrors of racial injustice and introduces us to the resilience and perseverance of the oppressed. Videos, charts, songs, holograms, quotes, photos come together to inform us of the centuries of slavery and racial terror. The undeniable truths leave us shaken because we inevitably identify with either the perpetrators if we are white, or the victims if we are black. There is no escaping emotion and humility in the hours spent here.
We depart the museum for the Memorial for Peace and Justice.
The victims of lynchings, those who can be named, and many who cannot, are listed county by county on large steel rectangular blocks. The mile long walk is somber, and further unsettling as we mourn the senseless loss and we question the glaring injustice.
Our final destination is the second of the Legacy Sites which is the recently opened Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. The sculptures express how the artists identify with the history we are all being asked to acknowledge. Along the Alabama River, the park sits beautifully displaying the stunning creative representations of courage, hope, strength, and faith.
This journey is difficult. This journey is emotional. This journey is enlightening. This journey is inspiring. The sentiment repeatedly represented is that we MUST understand the true history, though it makes our hearts hurt, in order to address what we face today.