The Legacy Museum inspired and guided by the EJI, Equal Justice Initiative. is one of the most startling and truthful exhibits on slavery in the United States.
Located at 115 Coosa Street in Montgomery Alabama, it makes it one of the easiest of the Alabama backroads day trips if you live in or near the area.
Even if you are in the Birmingham market, it is less than a 1½ drive to visit this brand new museum that opened to the public on April 26, 2018.
There should be a word of caution to families going to the Legacy Museum: this is one place that is not for the faint of heart.
In fact, if you are taking your family, discuss with them before you go the horrible facts that you are about to explore on this visit.
A good place to start is to explain that just one block away from the actual site of the museum, is where the Alabama docks and train stations are located. Why is this important?
These are the locations where tens of thousands of blacks were staged for trafficking during the early and mid-19th century.
The EJI, the Equal Justice Initiative, believes in some very strong principles and thoughts which include the following.
The reason for these three major contentions is quite simple; the Unites States never fully acknowledged the horror of slavery.
The Legacy Museum attempts to expose all of these facts and make people aware of what our true history actually is.
However, there are more injustices it attempts to show to the entire viewing public that actually cares to come and visit.
They include the following
The Legacy Museum officially opened in Montgomery Alabama to the general public on April 26, 2018.
It is an 11,000 square foot museum that is built near the docks and on the actual site where hundreds of thousands of blacks were warehoused.
In fact, in these warehouses male slaves would be hung by the hands so the potential white buyers could examine their arms and legs for strength to work their fields.
Montgomery was an ideal staging place because of the very rich and fertile “black belt” region, where slave owners forced their slaves to work the soil of the cotton fields.
In fact, by the year 1860, Montgomery had become the slave capital of the state of Alabama, and Alabama was one of the top 2 states for slave trade in the country.
The Legacy Museum, with the help if the Equal Justice Imitative, employs state of the art technology to fully dramatize the enslavement process but it does not stop there.
It also utilizes very rare and seldom seen firsthand accounts of these brutal activities, as well videography, exhibits, and unmatched research materials to cover the very gory details.
The Legacy Museum visitor experience is second to none in this type of venue as it is extremely powerful, and if you are not prepared, it can be overpowering.
Visitors will encounter an extremely strong ‘sense of place” almost like you are there watching what is happening to your fellow human being, and it is not pleasant to see.
Visitors will confront firsthand slave “pen” replicas that treat these blacks just like dogs, and you can literally see it up close and firsthand.
You can also see, hear, and get very close to what it was like for these blacks to go through and suffer these cruel and unequaled injustices.
But here is what really makes the Legacy Museum visitor experience so powerful; it is all narrated by first person accounts of fellow slaves.
The compelling visuals do not “sugar coat” what was happening like some museums, instead, it lets you relive all of the sordid details.
One final word of warning if you want to make this one of the Alabama backroads day trips with your family; make sure you explain to them what they are about to see and experience.
It is that powerful and is worth the second warning.
References
https://museumandmemorial.eji.org/museum
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