06/25/2026
L Y N C H I N G
M U S E U M
On most trips made to the south, I seek historical monuments and museums to visit. Even though this is my third trip to the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL since it opened, I learn more with each visit. As a descendant of enslaved Africans on American soil, I am often saddened that a significant portion of my history has been relegated to horrific narratives and barbaric photos of racial terrorism done to my ancestors by their white oppressors. In large, the enslavement of my ancestors by white Europeans has denied millions of today’s African American descendants points of origins and references to our true rich African history, identities, faiths, customs, and cultures. The intentional erasing of our history has left many of us conditioned to reject the very attributes that distinguished us from others.
The Legacy Museum and National Memorial in Montgomery, AL is one of the foremost national monuments where I pay homage to descendants of the TransAtlantic Slave Trade who were terrorized by lynching, humiliated by racial segregation, and presumed guilty and dangerous. The perpetuation of America’s terrorism and unaddressed trauma on its Black citizens lingers today and is sustained through systemic and structural barriers. The intentionality of President Donald J. Trump, his Administration, a majority white morally bankrupt Senate and Congress, and politically partial Supreme Court, continue to roll back key legislation that gave me and my ancestors rights and fair representation under the law.
Through President Donald J. Trump’s presidency, he seeks to erase from American history anything that portrays whites as they were, and in some cases are, barbaric, inhumane, manipulative, condescending, and dangerous. Despite his attempt to erase history, the facts remain that white Americans were responsible for more than 4,400 Blacks lynched, tortured, and murdered between 1877 and 1950. Yet, today’s media portrays my people as angry without cause and violent without reason, while excusing their history of brutality and continued lies as the cost for our freedom.
