Day 5: No Tears Left to Cry

Today I was thankful for my mask that hid tears rolling down my cheeks as I walked through the Legacy Museum and experienced the moving presentations of the evil part of our history that has been glossed over and sanitized. Walls of glass jars filled with different colored dirt were labeled with the names of real people, fathers, brothers, husbands, wives, sisters and mothers who were lynched noting the place and date. I read statistics that were hard to read….by 1860 over 4 million Africans were enslaved…10,000 people attended a carnival-like lynching of John Hartfield, by 1898 70% of Alabama’s state revenue came from convict leasing…to statistics of present day mass incarceration with 50% in jail due to drug offenses with mandatory minimum sentences and an increase of incarcerated individuals growing from 300,000 in 1972 to over 2 million today.  Hearing stories of those who have been on death row and are innocent is heartbreaking and demonstrates that racial injustice continues within the criminal justice system.

As we arrived at our next stop, the National Memorial to Peace and Justice, I was overcome with emotions as I saw the hanging pillars, representing specific counties within different states, listing the names of human beings, created in the image of God, who were brutally lynched by hate-filled human beings also created in the image of God, for insignificant and harmless actions. My heart grieved the loss of these people, their dreams, hopes and unrealized accomplishments, and grieved for the loss to each of their family and friends.  My heart wept for the evil that was directed toward them and the people that were instruments of that evil.  My heart longed for healing and reconciliation for then and for now. I felt like I was walking on sacred ground.

We ended the day hearing first-hand accounts from Carolyn Maull McKinstry, a survivor of the 16^th St. Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, AL in 1963, and Lisa McNair, the sister of Denise McNair, one of the four girls killed in the bombing.   Carolyn shared how she was in a depression for almost 20 years trying to put together what she had been taught from the Bible and what she experienced that day.  Her definition of reconciliation was simply to “get rid of what’s between you and someone else”.  This simple act can reap fruit that brings healing.

The Legacy Museum ended with a walkway of exhibits including questions that gave me hope for change and concrete ways to act and not just absorb facts and history.  Asking questions can be a starting point for action and response – Should any child be sentenced to die in prison? What can we do about the school to prison pipeline? (what are new ways to address student discipline in schools with high suspension and expulsion rates?) What is being done for rehab of inmates? (in Norway where they emphasize such programs, the return to prison rate is 20% compared to the US where the rate is close to 70%).  And it ended with an interactive display with listings by states of organizations that you can get involved with to make a difference.  I checked out PA – check out your state and get involved!

Linda Poston

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