The National Memorial for Peace and Justice

During the period between the Civil War and World War II, thousands of African Americans were lynched in the United States. Lynchings were violent and public acts of torture that traumatized black people throughout the country and were largely tolerated by state and federal officials. These lynchings were terrorism. ‘Terror lynchings’ peaked between 1880 and 1940 and claimed the lives of African American men, women, and children who were forced to endure the fear, humiliation, and barbarity of this widespread phenomenon unaided.

Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror (Third Edition). Equal Justice Initiative, 2018.

Introduce students to the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened in Montgomery, Alabama in 2018. Explain that this is the nation's first national memorial to victims of lynching, and that it contains the names of over 4,000 lynching victims engraved on columns representing each county in the United States where racial terror lynchings took place.

Have students:

• Read the Lynching in America report by the Equal Justice Initiative with a focus on the seven Key Findings that emerged through EJI’s research
• Introduce activities from “Lesson 2.3: Memorials and Monuments” in the Lynching in America lesson plan
• Analyze the purpose and reception of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. How does the memorial challenge or support the historical narratives that students are familiar with about this period/issue? How do they think the dominant “historical memory” of lynching has shaped the values of the public and has lent support to certain cultural and political positions throughout history? What was the motivation for the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and what was its public reception—locally and nationally? Compare and contrast it with the Stone Mountain memorial and other Confederate monuments.
• Visit the interactive map on the Lynching in America website and learn about the history of lynching in their state or region of the country
• Find out how to participate in EJI’s efforts to collaborate with counties across the country to install memorial columns with the names of lynching victims in their communities

Resources:

• Lynching in America website
• Lynching in America interactive map
• “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror (Third Edition),” Equal Justice Initiative, 2018
• The National Memorial for Peace and Justice website
• Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) website
• Museum and Memorial

Monumentally Missing

Are there events, individuals or communal experiences in U.S. history that should be memorialized in a public monument but aren't? The contentious disputes about Confederate monuments have opened up a larger conversation about Americans’ national identity and how we remember our past. Although challenging, these debates are a tremendous opportunity to re-imagine how we use our public spaces. In this activity, students will develop an idea for a “Missing Monument” that reveals hidden histories, amplifies marginalized voices and presents the public with new perspectives.

Introduce the class to Monument Lab: A Public Art and History Project led by artists Paul M. Farber and Ken Lum and produced with Mural Arts Philadelphia.

Explain: The mission of Monument Lab is “to critically engage monuments we have inherited and unearth the next generation of monuments through stories of social justice and solidarity.”

Play the video, An Introduction to Monument Lab and/or share the City Lab article, “What I Learned in the Monument Wars.”

Have students review the Monument Lab “Report to the City”, and prepare a proposal for their Missing Monuments using the Monument Lab form and process to guide the development of their ideas. Have students contact the Monument Lab project and request feedback on their monument ideas.

Resources:

• Monument Lab official website
• An Introduction to Monument Lab
• Sartwell, Crispin. “What I Learned In the Monument Wars,” City Lab, Oct 6, 2017.
• “Report to the City,” Monument Lab, October 2018.

History Onscreen: Stone Mountain Commercial

Have students re-watch the excerpt from the commercial for Stone Mountain Park once or twice (Graven Image 8:14-9:11). Give them five minutes to free-write in response to the following questions:

• What mood does the commercial evoke? (Consider: music, narration, scenery.)
• What phrases stand out to you?
• What images stand out to you?

Separate students into groups and ask them to discuss the historical memory of antebellum plantation life represented in the commercial. Compare that with their own historical memory. What did the Stone Mountain commercial leave out, and what did it include? (Consider: facts, emotions, interpersonal relationships.)

What kinds of cultural assumptions and political/social values are supported by this commercial’s representation of history? For example, what was your reaction to watching the woman cooking cornbread while the narrator intoned that Stone Mountain “turns the clock back to bygone ways…Remember how it used to be? It’s still that way at Stone Mountain.” How might people of color respond to this idealized version of the past? What is the power of historical reenactments and audio/visual representations to influence historical memory?

Introduce the phenomenon W. E. B. Du Bois called the “propaganda of history.”[1] How is the Stone Mountain commercial an example of the propaganda of history? How do the images and techniques the filmmaker used in Graven Image respond to and critique that propaganda? Ask students to brainstorm media representations they have encountered that have shaped their historical memory—how would they revisit these media with a critical eye for the assumptions and values they perpetuate? Consider: books, movies, television series, games, etc.

Ask students to imagine they’re commercial directors who have been approached by the Stone Mountain park organizers to reshoot the ad. Students should outline and pitch their own version of the commercial. What would they do differently? Students should consider images, narration language and tone, use of archival footage, reenactments, and focus. How could a new commercial help shift the historical memory that Stone Mountain perpetuates?

The Propaganda of History

It is propaganda like this that has led men in the past to insist that history is ‘lies agreed upon’; and to point out the danger in such misinformation. It is indeed extremely doubtful if any permanent benefit comes to the world through such action.

W. E. B. Du Bois, Black Reconstruction in America, 1860–1880 (Free Press, 1999), 711–714.

W. E. B. Du Bois was born in Massachusetts in 1868 and became one of the nation’s most influential civil rights activists, scholars, sociologists, educators, historians, writers and poets. Du Bois was the first African American to earn a Ph.D. from Harvard University, and went on to co-found the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1903.

In 1935, Du Bois published the influential book Black Reconstruction in America. How did Du Bois understand and approach the history of Reconstruction differently than other historians of his time? Why did he think that work was important to do?

Introduce the lesson, “ ‘Why Reconstruction Matters’ and ‘Black Reconstruction in America,’” from The New York Times Learning Network. The lesson pairs Eric Foner’s New York Times op-ed essay, “Why Reconstruction Matters”, with “The Propaganda of History,” an excerpt from Black Reconstruction in America. Both examine how biased historiography from the early 20th century helped to perpetuate injustice for generations of African Americans.

• Gonchar, Michael. “The Learning Network - Teaching and Learning With The New York Times Text to Text | ‘Why Reconstruction Matters’ and ‘Black Reconstruction in America,’” New York Times, December 9, 2015.
• “W. E. B. Du Bois Reflects on the Purpose of History Race in US History,” Facing History and Ourselves, 2018.
  • Access an excerpt from the chapter here.