Sunday, April 29, 2018

The Lynching Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama

I am glad to see that a very important memorial has been opened in Montgomery Alabama - The National Memorial for Peace and Justice. 

"The National Memorial for Peace and Justice commemorates 4,400 black people who were slain in lynchings and other racial killings between 1877 and 1950. Their names, where known, are engraved on 800 dark, rectangular steel columns, one for each U.S. county where lynchings occurred."  

Why do I think this is important?  Because it illuminates the lie that the South has a right to remember its history by erecting statues to Confederate generals and soldiers who fought in the Civil War.  Those statues do not honor the history of the Confederacy.  The Confederacy tried to break away from the United States in order to preserve its "peculiar institution" of slavery.  The South erected heroic statues of Confederate "heroes" in response to Civil Rights movements post Civil War.  

Then, and sadly, to some extent, now, the South is dedicated to the terrible and ridiculous idea of white supremacy.  Our current president is dumb enough to overtly pander to the "alt-right", neo-Nazis, KKK, and white supremacists of all labels as a political tactic to get elected, and perhaps re-elected.  

Trump has often overtly referred to his "good genes" or "superior genes" to account for his spectacular success - an overt message to white supremacists that he is one of them - and they respond with admiration and loyalty.

So, the Lynching Memorial is a fitting companion to statues of Confederate military glory.  The continuation of Jim Crow, including many forms of oppression and abuse designed to keep blacks "in their place" continued well beyond the end of the Civil War.  And it could well be that the giant prison industry today is little more than a continuation of Jim Crow into today's sad world.

Indeed, I would like to see statues of whipping posts, auction blocks, and slave women being raped put next to these Confederate statues so that everyone would see for themselves what the Confederate "heroes" were actually fighting for.