Sexual violence, lynchings … The Legacy museum, which has just opened in Alabama, draws a direct link between the racist past of the United States and the inequalities of today.
Slavery, lynchings, segregation, but also the overrepresentation of African Americans in prison and victims of police violence: a museum, open since Friday in Alabama, traces a direct link between the racist past of the United States and the inequalities today.
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The Legacy museum, an extension of a smaller project launched in 2018, is located in Montgomery, on a site where black men and women were once forced into forced labor. “It is a museum of American history, centered on slavery and its consequences (…) because no other institution has so shaped our economy, our politics, our social structures and our temperament.», Explains to AFP its promoter, lawyer and activist Bryan Stevenson. However, he notes, this story is poorly taught across the Atlantic: “many people do not know that twelve million people were kidnapped in Africa and taken to America, that two million died on the crossing …»
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The museum, the first of its kind according to him, aims to fill this void and create “awarenessWhich pushes Americans to engage in the fight against current inequalities. To do this, it is not enough to provide information to visitors, “we must also touch their heartsBryan Stevenson said. The institution, inspired by those of the Holocaust in Berlin or of Apartheid in Johannesburg, therefore offers an immersive experience.: as soon as they arrive, visitors are embarked aboard a ship crossing the Atlantic, witnessing the sufferings of future slaves. Also without complacency, another space is dedicated to the violence of slavery, including sexual violence. A wing is dedicated to the thousands of victims of lynchings, which occurred between 1877 and 1950. The National Monument for Peace and Justice, adjacent to the museum, also pays homage to them.
The exhibition also brings to life “ the humiliation of the segregation in force in the South after the Second World War and the challenges of the present time: massive incarceration and police violence against African AmericansBryan Stevenson says. His first fight, recounted in the book and the film Just Mercy (The Ways of Justice), was to fight against the miscarriages of justice of which black Americans are often victims. With his organization Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), he succeeded in clearing several people condemned to death. In the museum, visitors can sit in a parlor and listen to them tell their stories. This museum is part of a fundamental movement in the United States, where the work of rereading the past has deepened since the murder of African-American George Floyd by a white police officer in May 2020.
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But efforts to better teach the dark pages of history, especially in schools, meet fierce opposition in conservative circles. “It does not surprise me that there is resistance”, comments Bryan Stevenson, convinced that America “Will overcome his fears”.
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