Freedom Monument Sculpture Park honors lives of enslaved people

the peaceful beauty of the Alabama River in Montgomery is undeniable but so is its place in a brutal history so the narrative will begin on this boat absolutely being sold down the river being trafficked by boat or by rail was an absolutely terrifying experience for enslaved people the Alabama River was the primary way in which enslaved people were trafficked to the Deep South during the 19th centur many slaves were sold through the city of Montgomery's slave Depots and uh the boats and The Rail

lines were critical to that mass movement but people would be brought here sold and then taken to Lou County and Wilcox County and uh Morango County and counties throughout this region that have some of the largest populations of of enslaved people but also still have some of the largest populations of black people today Brian Stevenson is the founder in CEO of the Equal justice initiative which created the freedom Monument Sculpture Park on these Shores where the slave trade once flourished th

ere's not much in the visual record of that era that helps you get a sense of the humanity of these people but artists have done an amazing job their work part of a 17 acre Memorial honoring the lives of the 10 million black people who were enslaved in America and so we we see these sculptures told the sculptures together tell the story yes that's right these are intended to just help put what happens on this continent in a broader context because of course you know slavery has existed in the wo

rld since human existence and there's always been forms of kind of human bondage it's one of the worst kind of Human Rights abuses sculptures and replicas help weave the story from the places they were held they would put them in holding pens uh where they would wait until the auction uh and this is a replica of a holding pen and you could have 20 25 people in a space like this sometimes for you know weeks 20 25 people 20 25 people for weeks waiting uh to be sold and here's the cruel pain of tha

t uh you'd have 20 25 people crammed in a place like this very little food very but the last thing you wanted to do do would be to leave the space cuz when you left this space you were going to be sold away Once Sold slaves were housed in separate quarters we wanted to have a space where where visitors could really experience the life of enslaved people uh I was really pleased that we were able to find actual dwellings where enslave people lived that were built 175 years ago this is an autic thi

s was built in 18 52 yeah yeah and and that's for me yeah I mean the there is something about being in a space that you know was inhabited for a long time by enslaved people and their and their Descendants the park also includes places where slaves were terrorized yes I I just just I just want to point out this uh whipping post which has some personal significance to me so this is a whipping post from the county I grew up in and it was in the town square and it was this ominous structure that in

timidated the entire uh black population because this is where people would be brought they'd be chained to these Hooks and they would be lashed or whipped or beaten this is an actual one this is an actual one yeah it's from Sussex County it's from Georgetown um Delaware and it wasn't removed from the square until 2020 so there would be Shack yes you can see the metal uh points here along the trail visitors are reminded this human trafficking was not just a stain on the South North Carolina Mary

land New Jersey its tentacles reach North no it begins in the north it begins in New England also posted here laws that codify brutality against slaves homicide shall be deemed excusable when committed by accident or Misfortune in lawfully correcting a slave Licensed to Kill that's right that's right and all of these laws really created a a an order that empowered people to use violence to maintain slavery for better security of all such persons that shall Endeavor to take any runaway or shall e

xamine any slave for his ticket passing to and from his master's Plantation is hereby declared lawful for any white person to beat maim or assault and if such negro or cannot otherwise be taken to kill him who shall refuse to show his ticket or by running away or resistance shall Endeavor to avoid being apprehended or taken and this is what we mean when we codify kind of a racial hierarchy this is this is this stunning and I think you know it was a I really wanted people to see the laws I wanted

to we try in this space in all of our spaces to use firstperson narrative cuz we don't want someone to think oh you're making that up or you're interpreting that some of them are are just bizarre there are laws that prohibit black people from owning uh dogs uh there are laws that prohibit people uh from having any kind of weapon uh there are these really graphic things we did uh be it further enacted by authority of the foreset in case such negro or slave shall run away a second time he or she

so offending shall be branded with the letter R on the right cheek and in in case such negro slave shall run away the third time he or she shall be severely whipped not exceeding 40 Lashes you'll see that a lot of these laws uh were in the South and that was why there was so much fear of being sold to the south in the 19th century did this open the door um in many ways for lynching oh absolutely the Monument Park joins two other Legacy sites the National Memorial for peace and Justice lays be th

e raw history of lynching in America and the recently opened Legacy Museum Which documents the history and impact of the Atlantic slave trade it seems like a direct repudiation of some of the things the movements we've heard over the last couple of years to not teach some of this history critical race theory for me it's been a lifelong ambition to just kind of get people to reckon with the truth we can't get there if we don't talk honestly about this history would America different if America ha

d a deeper understanding of what you're absolutely showing here absolutely and I think if we have the courage to contend with this um we can imagine America being different in a generation or two because I think that um you know despite all of my achievements despite your achievements despite all of the extraordinary things that so many people have done um there's still a presumption of d dangerousness and guilt that gets assigned to black and brown people and we see about we read about it all t

he time we see it all the time police violence is a tragic manifestation of it and I want to get to the point where the children of my children the grandchildren of my children are free of that presumption but that means we have to address the problems we have to address the challenges you know what we know about human evolution uh is that you have to talk about the problem the centerpiece of the sculpture Park this wall embossed with 122,000 surnames that were adopted by newly emancipated slave

s during the 1870 census it's a really remarkable moment in American history of expressing freedom and identity because prior to the 1870s census enslave people were could only be numbers uh in the census or first name and these are the names that represent the 4 million people who were emancipated recorded in 1870 and um you know we wanted to um see them in a place of honor uh see them on a wall scanning the names you know what I'm doing now of course I find what I'm looking for the name Housto

n Houston is my uh uh fraternal grandmother's family and then I come across Hol here we go yeah there it is mar Holt yes now that name was picked for some reason yeah that's right we don't know why no and and what's interesting is um a lot of the names were names that people heard yeah I sit there and I look at that and I I think of who that name represents yeah yeah what they went through could they ever imagine me yeah that's the thing that's powerful standing here yeah the sense I get is that

you want this to be what I just went through a sense of Discovery yeah at at every turn and it has felt like that yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's a and it's also a way um of of creating Redemption for people who were denied their full humanity and their full dignity because when we come and honor them and celebrate them and put them up on a giant wall in a place like Alabama which was the sight of so much brutality and violence and enslavement I think we do something to their memory uh that needs

to be done the urge is to grieve for them Brian Stevenson wants us to honor them he quotes from the inscription at the base of the wall and during the horrors and pain of slavery you still found the capacity to love to dream to nurture new life and to Triumph we honor your strength we honor your perseverance in the midst of Sorrow we honor your struggle for Freedom your children love you and the line that jumps out of me the country you built must honor you yeah yeah yeah and that's what this Mo

nument hopes to do [Music] absolutely nightly films is sponsored by fizer thanks for watching our YouTube channel follow today's top stories and breaking news by downloading the NBC News app