EJI’s New Monument to Freedom Dedicated to Those Who Endured Slavery

Associated Press Dr. Michele R. Williams and her mother, Barbara Y. Williams, scanned the rows of names last month on Juneteenth, looking for their family surname, Murdough. “There’s a story connected to every single name and the families that they represent,” Michele Williams said. Their ancestor, a man named Moses, is believed to have lived in one of the two slave cabins that were taken from an Alabama plantation to become an exhibit at the sculpture park. Two slave cabins were taken from an Alabama plantation to become an exhibit at the sculpture park. (EJI) “It was just heart-wrenching, but also super-moving,” Michele Williams said of seeing the cabin. Thousands of surnames grace the towering National Monument to Freedom in Montgomery, representing the more than 4 million enslaved people who were freed after the Civil War. The Equal Justice Initiative, a criminal justice reform nonprofit, invoked last month’s Juneteenth holiday — the day that commemorates the end of slavery in the U.S. —as it dedicated its National Monument to Freedom. The National Monument to Freedom honors the people who endured and survived slavery. (EJI) The monument, which honors the people who endured and survived slavery, is the centerpiece of the...