THE NATIONAL MEMORIAL FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

Following an investigation into racist lynchings and murders in the southern United States and the publication of the book Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror, the idea of creating a memorial dedicated to the 4,300 African-American men, women and children who were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned or beaten to death, from the period of slavery to segregation was born. After work began in 2010, the EJI, which also owns The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass, inaugurated this national memorial in 2016. The idea is to create a site that is both refined and meaningful to pay tribute to this sad period in history. The memorial offers an emotionally charged journey dotted with statues, monuments and plaques that evoke different forms of terror and racial violence, including a sculpture by artist Dana King dedicated to the women who supported the Montgomery bus boycott and Hank Willis Thomas' moving creation dedicated to police violence. There are also quotes from novelist Toni Morrison and Martin Luther King Jr. and a space for reflection in honour of civil rights leader Ida B. Wells. In the centre of the site, visitors will find a memorial square composed of 805 suspended steel rectangles, whose size and shape evoke coffins and represent each of the counties in the United States where a documented lynching took place.