The AAMU Civic Engagement Team recently led a student trip to The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, thanks to a grant from Catherine Coleman Flowers, The Center for Rural Enterprise and Environmental Justice and David Person.
The Legacy Museum tells the story of slavery in America and its legacy through interactive media, first-person narratives, world-class art, and data- rich exhibits. The museum is part of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit organization that provides legal representation to people who have been illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in jails and prison. The EJI also works to challenge the death penalty and excessive punishment, and provides re- entry assistance for the formerly incarcerated.
The Legacy Museum offers a powerful, immersive journey through America’s history of racial injustice.
On the site of a cotton warehouse where enslaved Black people were forced to labor in bondage, the Legacy Museum tells the story of slavery in America and its legacy through interactive media, first-person narratives, world-class art, and data-rich exhibits.Travel through a comprehensive history of the destructive violence that shaped our nation, from the slave trade, to the era of Jim Crow and racial terror lynchings, to our current mass incarceration crisis—and find inspiration in our soaring Reflection Space and world-class art gallery.
Along with the Legacy Museum, EJI also founded the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, the nation’s first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the legacy of Black Americans who were enslaved. Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, a 17-acre site explor- ing the lived experience of enslaved people in America, will open soon.
