Connect with us

Education

The sculpture park provides an uncompromising look at the faces and lives of enslaved Americans

Published

on

Freedom Monument Sculpture Park

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) – Visitors to the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park wind along a winding path past artwork depicting the lives of enslaved people in America and historical exhibits, including two cabins where enslaved people lived, before reaching the massive monument.

Stretching almost 4 stories up, the National Freedom Monument pays tribute to the thousands and thousands of individuals who experienced the brutality of slavery. The monument includes 122,000 names that formerly enslaved people selected for themselves, as documented in the 1870 census after emancipation at the end of the Civil War.

The sculpture park is the third space created by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama, to take an uncompromising look at the nation’s history of slavery, racism and discriminatory policing. The first two sites – the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, a memorial to those killed in racially motivated terrorist killings; and Heritage Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration – opened in 2018.

Advertisement
Freedom Monument Sculpture Park
“Black Renaissance”, Rayvenn D’Clark, bronze, 2023 during a media tour of the Equal Justice Initiative’s recent Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, Tuesday, March 12, 2024, in Montgomery, Alabama (AP Photo/Vasha Hunt)

The sculpture park, which opens on March 27, brings together art installations, historical artifacts and personal narratives to explore the history of slavery in America and pay tribute to the thousands and thousands of individuals who experienced its brutality.

After opening the first two sites, Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, said he still had quite a bit of work to do. Most of the plantation’s tourist attractions, he said, focus on the lives of the family that enslaved them. His goal was to create a spot where visitors could “really honestly experience the history of slavery.”

“I see it as a space to tell the truth, a place where we can confront parts of our history and paths that are not usually taught,” he said. But he also believes that ultimately it’s “a place full of hope.”

“If people find a way to create a family and a future despite the horrors of this institution, then we can do something comparable in our time to create a future less burdened by these histories than I think,” Stevenson said.

The 17-acre site is nestled between the winding banks of the muddy waters of the Alabama River and railroad tracks, two transportation mechanisms utilized in the nineteenth century to bring people to the city’s slave markets. Visitors will give you the option to reach by boat, essentially following the same route used to move stolen and trafficked goods.

Advertisement

Featured Stories

The park opens as some politicians, including in the Deep South, attempt to set parameters for a way race and history are taught in classrooms and during staff training sessions. Stevenson argues that such denial has at all times accompanied progress.

“I see this as a form of desperate act to keep up the silence, the established order and the burden of bigotry that we have now handled for therefore long. And I just do not believe it is going to succeed because the truth is powerful,” Stevenson said.

The sculpture park features major works by artists similar to Simone Leigh. Leigh’s Brick House, a 15-foot-tall bronze bust of a black woman, is a robust presence of force at the entrance to the garden.

Advertisement

In Kwame Akoto-Bamfo’s work entitled Mama, I Hurt My Hand, a toddler dragging a bag of cotton reaches out to indicate the injured hand to the mother who’s balancing a basket of cotton and a baby strapped to her back. Next to them sits an exhausted, drained man with scarred skin and a broken leg.

Exhibits include two 170-year-old cabins that housed enslaved families on a cotton plantation, a whipping post, chains used to carry human traffickers, and replicas of a transport wagon and slave pen. Interspersed amongst the exhibits are first-person accounts of enslaved and formerly enslaved people about their lives.

Alison Saar, a Los Angeles sculptor, has a chunk in her garden that “relates to runaway slaves and their ability to survive and thrive on their own,” she said.

“I think all of this is incredible and needed more than ever,” Saar said. Visitors to the park will come across sculptures that depict “not only the horrors of being enslaved, but the truly beautiful stories and glory of the people who somehow escaped it and created a life of their own.”

Advertisement

The centerpiece of the park is the National Freedom Monument, whose name comes from the 1870 census by which formerly enslaved people reported their names.

Visitors can walk up, find their family name and touch it, seeing their very own faces reflected in the polished granite – an experience Stevenson himself experienced recently when more names were carved into the stone.

“I came in, saw my name and was surprised by the impact it had on me, even though I had been planning it for two years,” he said.

EJI is a legal organization perhaps best known for its work to free those wrongly sentenced to death – which is the subject of the 2019 film starring Michael B. Jordan and Jamie Foxx, based on Stevenson’s best-selling book “Just Mercy.”

Advertisement

The organization erected the first historic markers in downtown Montgomery years ago to mark slave market and lynching sites throughout the South.

Stevenson said truth and confrontation with history are key to America’s progress, likening it to an alcoholic who must acknowledge the harm he has caused through abuse to be able to move on.

“I feel there’s something higher waiting for us. I feel there’s something that’s more like freedom, equality, justice. But I do not think we will achieve this unless we break down the barriers and burdens that our silence about history has created,” Stevenson said.

Advertisement


This article was originally published on : thegrio.com

Education

NAACP asks for a formal meeting after the Kennesaw State University program is completed

Published

on

By

NAACP in Georgia asked for a formal meeting with Kennesaw State University after the school announced that it deactivates a handful of “low producers”, including the Black Studies program.

In a recent note addressed to colleagues, officials on the third largest university in Georgia announced that it could deactivate Black Studies, Filosophy and Technical Communication Sofors, effective immediately, Then AND Atlanta’s voice Reported.

Advertisement

According to WABE, the assistant of the KSU Vice President for Strategic Communication, Tammy Demel, called programs “low producers” on account of their low number of scholars. In E -Mailes obtained by The Atlanta Voice, university officials, making an allowance for the low registration of scholars, the programs were not needed after re -evaluation and made the best decision on “limited resources”.

General’s University System of Criteria In the case of “low production” there is lower than 10 for a bachelor program. While black studies and technical communication programs had lower than 10 students, WABE announced that the philosophical program enrolled 40 students on April 29.

The “two -year teaching plan” shall be implemented in order that students currently enrolled in programs can complete them. The faculty and employees will keep their positions to proceed to supply minors, general education courses and select.

However, the commercial shocked members amongst lecturers, the student body and more.

Advertisement
Obama praises Harvard University for the defense of Trump despite the threat of financing USD 2.2 billion

“The NAACP conference in Georgia is concerned about reports on the potential elimination of the Black State program at Kennesaw State University,” said the organization in Edition published to X This definitely condemned this decision.

“The Black Studies program is not only an academic discipline-it is an important space for intellectual investigation, cultural affirmation and historical telling of the truth,” the organization continued. “His presence reflects the university’s involvement in integration education and a representation of marginalized votes in the academic canon. District of such a program would be a deep harmful to students of all environments and a clear background in the constant pursuit of justice and justice in higher education.”

According to Atlanta Voice, employees query the move to deactivate programs as a violation of resolutions adopted by the RCHSS Program Committee in April 2024.

Although the reason given was the low registration of scholars, because Trump’s administration is addressed to Dei programs and rules in schools and institutions throughout the country, it is difficult to disregard some.

“We intend to talk about the behavior and full support of the Black Studies program and ensure that the university will maintain its responsibility for supporting the diverse and integration of the academic community,” said Georgia NAACP.

Advertisement
Trump stops relief in student loans, re -launches collections and payroll resources:

(Tagstranslate) Black Studies (T) Education (T) Kennew State University

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Continue Reading

Education

Bill Bill Sparks Texas Bill

Published

on

By

Guber


On May 3, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed laws establishing a personal school coupon According to .

The law comes into force at the tip of 2026 before this, the Texas controller is designed to create an education savings account program.

Advertisement

According to The Bill 2 Senate allows families to make use of public dollars of taxpayers to finance child education in an accredited private school or paying for other expenses related to high school, akin to textbooks, transport or therapy. The port fund in the quantity of $ 1 billion establishes it as one in all the most important regulations regarding the alternative of faculty within the country.

This problem has been a source of competition in Texas for years. Democrats and village Republicans in a rustic who fought him say that coupons can ultimately harm public school systems that Texas is already insufficient, and plenty of inhabitants of low income from Texas, who cannot afford a personal school, even with the support of the coupon.

Coupon programs in other states have already been revealed as helpful for wealthy families who could already afford private teaching, on the expense of colourful students, special students and low -income students, in addition to resulting in disappointing academic results for college students.

“Remember about this day when the school closes in your area,” he said on the press conference Rep. James Talarico (D-Austin). “Remember that the next day his beloved teacher resigns because he cannot support his family to their salary. Remember this next mouth of local property taxes, because the state government does not make a fair share in school financing. And if the recession comes and we are forced to make even deeper cuts of public education, remember that day.”

Advertisement

Texas Rep. Gene Wu, (D-Houston) Democratic Chairman of the Club, was Critical of the 4 -level program system. “Billionaires can use it and there is only no explanation why. When it comes to raising poor people, just check poor people.”

According to ABC-13, although the bill has a priority to ascertain low-income students’ priorities and stays open to all levels of income, these goals He created doubts for education policy and public education experts About the state’s ability to assist children from Texas who need the best help.

Josh Cowen, professor of educational policy at Michigan State University and a critic of coupons programs, told The Outlet that there is no such thing as a method to win Abbott and help the lower and medium income at the identical time.

“(Legislators) are in a difficult place who really want to do it for children. What they are trying to do is create a universal coupon bill to win the governor, and at the same time adhere to messages, and maybe even a policy that is to help families with lower income and medium income. And these two goals of the conflict,” said Cowen.

Advertisement

In April, a representative of the state Jolanda Jones (D-Houston) argued in the course of the Houston Black Rescue City Hall that the coupon program was a two -level education system This brought only Texans who could afford private schools.

“Public dollars should not be spent in private places and spaces,” said Jones. “We don’t want coupons, because for everyone this is not good education, for some it is simply great education. Most private schools are $ 30,000, and $ 10,000 everything he does is his prosperity, a subsidiary for rich people.”


Advertisement
This article was originally published on : www.blackenterprise.com
Continue Reading

Education

The Department of Justice has completed a ten -year school desegregation order. Others are expected to fall

Published

on

By

When the Department of Justice raised the order for school desegregation in Louisian this week, officials called his further existence “bad historical” and suggested that others with the Civil Rights Movement must be considered again.

The end of the legal agreement of 1966 with Plaquemines Parish Schools announced on Tuesday shows that Trump’s administration, “re -focusing of America in our bright future,” said the assistant of the Prosecutor General Harmeet Dhillon.

In the Department of Justice, officials appointed by President Donald Trump expressed their desire to withdraw from other desegregation orders, which they perceive as an unnecessary burden on schools, according to a person conversant in the issue that received anonymity because they weren’t authorized to speak public.

Advertisement

Dozens of school districts within the south remain as part of contracts enforced by the court, dictating steps in the sector of integration, many years after the Supreme Court limited racial segregation in education. Some perceive the strength of court orders as a sign that the federal government has never eliminated segregation, while officials in Louisiana and in some schools perceive orders as past relics that must be removed.

The Department of Justice opened a wave of matters within the Sixties, after the Congress released the department to follow schools that were based on desegregation. Known as consent decrees, orders may be raised when districts prove that they’ve eliminated segregation and its heritage.

Mark Zuckerberg closes the schools that he launched for colored communities

The small district of Louisiana has a long -lasting case of integration

The Trump administration called Plaquemines an example of administrative neglect. It was found that the Delta Delta of the Mississippi River within the south -eastern Louisiana integrated in 1975, however the case was to remain under the view of the court for the subsequent yr. The judge died in the identical yr, and the judicial register “seems to be lost in time,” in accordance with the court application.

“Considering that this case remained for half a century with zero proceedings by the court, parties or any third parties, the parties are satisfied that the United States’s claims were fully resolved,” in accordance with the joint submission of the Department of Justice and the Office of the Prosecutor General Liz Murill.

SUPERINTENDENT Plaquemines Shelley Ritz said that the officials of the Department of Justice still visited yearly in 2023 and asked for data on topics, including employment and discipline. She said that the documentation was a burden for her district lower than 4,000 students.

Advertisement

“These were data compilation hours,” she said.

Louisiana “gained his act ten years ago,” said Leo Terrell, senior adviser to the Civil Rights Department on the Department of Justice, in a statement. He said that the discharge is corrected by historical evil, adding that “the time had been going to recognize how far we have come.”

Murrill asked the Department of Justice to close other school orders in her condition. In a statement she promised cooperation with schools in Louisiana to help them “put the past in the past.”

Activists for civil rights claim that that is the improper move. Many orders have been loosely enforced only in recent many years, but this doesn’t mean that problems have been resolved, said Johnathan Smith, who worked within the Department of Civil Rights of the Department of Justice in the course of the administration of President Joe Biden.

Advertisement

“It probably means the opposite – that the school district remains sorted. In fact, most of these districts are now more sorted than in 1954.” – said Smith, who’s currently the chief of staff and general adviser to the National Center for Youth Law.

An outstanding pastor notified about the books of the borrowed African American Museum can be returned among the review

Desegregation orders include a number of instructions

According to the files of submitting this yr, over 130 school systems are based on the desegregation orders of the Department of Justice. The overwhelming majority are in Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi, with smaller numbers in states equivalent to Florida, Louisiana and South Karolina. Some other districts remain on the premise of separate desegregation agreements with the education department.

Orders may include a number of remedies, from bus requirements to district policy, enabling students in black schools to transfer to the fundamental white. Agreements are between the school district and the US government, but other parties may ask the court to intervene after they resumed signs of segregation.

In 2020, the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund referred to the Decree of consent within the Leeds school district in Alabama, when he stopped offering school meals in the course of the Covid-19 pandemic. The Civil Rights Group said that it’s disproportionately harmful to black students, in violation of the desegregation order. The district agreed to resume meals.

Last yr, the school board in Louisiana closed mainly the Black Primary School near the petrochemical institution after NACP Legal Defense and Education Fund said that he disproportionately exposes black students to health threats. The Council made a decision after the group submitted a request to a ten -year desegregation order within the parish of St. John the Baptist.

Advertisement

The release caused alarms amongst some who are afraid that this may occasionally withdraw his many years of progress. Research on districts exempt from orders showed that many have recorded a greater increase in racial segregation compared to those that are subject to court orders.

“In many cases, schools react quite quickly and there are new fears regarding civil rights for students,” said Halley Potter, an older worker of the Century Foundation who studies educational inequality.

The end of orders would cause that desegregation isn’t any longer a priority, said Robert Westley, a professor of anti -discrimination law on the Tulane University Law School in New Orleans.

“It is really a signaling that the deviation that began some time ago is completed,” said Westley. “The United States government no longer cares about dealing with problems of racial discrimination in schools. This is the end.”

Advertisement

Raymond Pierce, president and general director of Southern Education Foundation.

“This is a disregard for education for a large part of America. It is a disregard for America’s need for an educated labor force,” he said. “And it is a disregard for the rule of law.”

Trump signs executive orders focused on universities, as well as efforts in the field of school capital

(Tagstranslate) Education

This article was originally published on : thegrio.com
Advertisement
Continue Reading
Advertisement

OUR NEWSLETTER

Subscribe Us To Receive Our Latest News Directly In Your Inbox!

We don’t spam! Read our privacy policy for more info.

Trending