The Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama was where the Selma to Montgomery march began, which ultimately led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The bridge was named after a former Confederate general, U.S. Senator and leader of the Ku Klux Klan. On March 7, 1965, John Lewis and others marched on the bridge and were brutally beaten by state troopers in an event known as “Bloody Sunday.”
I visited the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as a pastor from 1954 to 1960. The Montgomery bus boycott was organized here in 1955, after an activist named Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a local bus.
The residence of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., which was bombed during the bus boycott by a white supremacist in in 1956. Despite this violence against the peaceful preacher, Dr. King stood on the porch and called on his followers to remain calm.
It was incredible to stand under the bus station sign where Freedom Riders were met with extreme violence in 1961 when they took buses from Washington, D.C. to the South to protest segregation on interstate buses.
The National Peace and Justice Memorial honors the over 4,000 African Americans who died by lynching in our country. Each box signifies the people murdered without due process in each county where these crimes occurred. A generous donation by an anonymous donor has made this memorial and its associated “The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration” free to all visitors.
I learned some shocking statistics while at the memorial and museum about our current system of mass incarceration. In the 21st Century, one in three Black boys will be incarcerated in their lifetime. The U.S. has 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s incarcerated population. In 1972, the U.S. imprisoned 300,000 people. Today, our country incarcerates over 2 million people, of which people of color are disproportionately represented.
We still have tremendous work to do as a country in dismantling white supremacy and with it police brutality. This art piece is dedicated to all of the people killed by the police and never got to see their wedding day. Names of those killed are marked on the dress with bullets used like beads.
This was part of a collection made by high school students at Jefferson Davis High School in protest and recognition of their school being named after a man who enslaved people, many of whom were their ancestors.