Lynching museum set to open on site of former US slave depot in memory of those 'killed by white supremacy'

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Martin Coulter25 April 2018

A lynching museum is set to open on the site of a former slave depot in the US.

The Legacy Museum, alongside the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, opens to the public in Alabama on Thursday.

The two projects have been brought to fruition by the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative, a legal advocacy group in Montgomery.

The organisation says the two sites will be the nation's first "comprehensive memorial dedicated to racial terror lynchings of African Americans and the legacy of slavery and racial inequality in America."

The blocks bear the names of more than 4,000 victims
Legacy Museum

Founder Bryan Stevenson said: "We don't have many places in America where we have urged people to look at the history of racial inequality, to look at the history of slavery, of lynching."

The memorial features 800 brown rectangular slabs inscribed with the names of more than 4,000 people who were lynched between 1877 and 1950.

The museum is built on the site of a former slave depot
Legacy Museum

Lynchings rose in the US in the late 1800s, following the American Civil War and the emancipation of the slaves, most often targeting African American men and women.

Mr Stevenson, who works with death row inmates, has had judges presume he is a defendant when he sits at the defence table.

He says slavery "didn't disappear but evolved", saying: "The myth of white supremacy that was created to justify slavery didn't disappear in 1865."

He added that he expects that some people will be made to feel "uncomfortable" by the new memorial and museum, noting the organisation got pushback a few years ago when they erected the first historical markers in downtown Montgomery to mark the sites of slave markets.

"I think there is a better America still waiting. There is a more just America still waiting...

"There's a kind of community that we haven't achieved yet. but we can't achieve it if we are unwilling to tell the truth about our past."

The museum's opening day comes amid rising anxiety over a recent spike in racism in mainstream US political debate. A rally in Georgia earlier this week saw a group of white supremacists giving Nazi salutes and burning a Nazi symbol.

Additional reporting by the Associated Press

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