The National Memorial for Peace and Justice

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice

The National Memorial is a sacred space for truth telling and reflection about racial terrorism and its legacy.

On a hilltop overlooking Montgomery is the nation’s first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the legacy of Black Americans who were enslaved, terrorized by lynching, humiliated by racial segregation, and presumed guilty and dangerous.

More than 4,400 Black people killed in racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950 are remembered here. Their names are engraved on more than 800 corten steel monuments—one for each county where a racial terror lynching took place—that form the main structure of the memorial at the heart of this six-acre site.

Confronting Racial Terror Lynching in America

Confronting Racial Terror Lynching in America

Men and boys pose beneath the body of Lige Daniels, a Black man, shortly after he was lynched on August 3, 1920, in Center, Texas.

EJI has documented nearly 6,500 racial terror lynchings in America between 1865 and 1950. Thousands more Black people whose deaths may never be discovered have been killed by white mob lynchings.

An illustration shows white men celebrating as buildings burn during the Memphis Massacre of 1866.

The 1866 Memphis Massacre is one of more than 30 mass lynchings documented during the Reconstruction era.

Colorized photograph shows thousands of people watching the public spectacle lynching of Henry Smith in Paris, Texas, on February 1, 1893.

The National Memorial documents more than 4,500 racial terror lynchings between 1877 and 1950, the most active era of racial terror lynchings in America.

Black troops line up in formation in front of a color guard with a large American flag.

Many Black veterans were targeted for mistreatment, violence, and murder during the lynching era due to their race and military experience. Learn more about the culture of targeted violence and social humiliation facing Black veterans.

Three young women wear signs and nooses around their necks while protesting against lynchings.

African Americans combatted the terror of lynching through grassroots activism. To thwart lynching attempts, Black people risked serious harm to hide fugitives, organized sentinels to guard prisoners against lynch mobs, and engaged in armed self-defense.

A woman touches a white rose to the monument at the Peace and Justice Memorial Center to honor a family member who was lynched during the 1950s.

Racially motivated violence and lynchings continued after 1950, often targeting early civil rights leaders and Black people whose success challenged white supremacy.

Racial terror lynchings were violent and public acts of torture that traumatized Black people throughout the country. Tolerated and often aided by law enforcement and elected officials and designed to re-establish racial hierarchy after the Civil War, lynching was terrorism.

Racial terror lynching left thousands dead, significantly marginalized Black people politically, financially, and socially, and inflicted deep traumatic wounds on survivors, witnesses, and the entire African American community that fester to this day.

Publicly confronting the truth about our history is the first step towards recovery and reconciliation.