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An Alabama sculpture park evokes the painful history of slavery
In Montgomery, Alabama, wedged between a maze of train tracks and the river, a long-neglected plot of land has been transformed. It’s now home to the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, the vision of lawyer and social activist Bryan Stevenson.
The 17-acre park, set to open this month, is filled with nearly 50 sculptures by world-famous artists like Kehinde Wiley, Simone Leigh. and Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, collectively evoking the history of slavery in America. “Artists have the ability to depict the humanity and the dignity of people, even in the midst of something brutal and violent,” said Stevenson. “It’s a tough subject. It’s a challenging subject. And we wanted to use art to help people manage the weight of this history and engage in a more complete way with the lives of enslaved people.”
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It’s the latest project for Stevenson, founder and director of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), also based in Montgomery. For more than 30 years, Stevenson and his team have provided legal services to people on death row, to date helping overturn more than 140 convictions and sentences. He said understanding the racial injustices of the present begins by reckoning with the tortured legacy of the past.
“As they say, the truth can set us free,” said Stevenson. “And I genuinely believe that there is something that feels more like freedom, more like equality, more like justice waiting for us in America. But I don’t think we’ll get there if we don’t find the courage to talk honestly about our past.”
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Over the years, the EJI has expanded its mission, to build cultural sites in Montgomery, like the Legacy Museum, and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, focusing on America’s history of lynching.
Stevenson said, “There were 10 million people who were enslaved in this country, and much of what I hope we can do is honor those who struggled and suffered, and those who endured and persevered.”
That begins by taking park visitors across the Alabama River, a route taken by tens of thousands of enslaved Africans.
“You’d see these boats with enslaved people chained in the bottom and docking, just a half-mile from here,” he said, “and then there would be what enslaved people referred to as the weeping time, the time where they had to fear being separated from children, separated from spouses.”
The park mixes artifacts of slavery, like 170-year-old plantation dwellings and a whipping post, with powerful works of artistic imagination.
“Strike,” by artist Hank Willis Thomas, evokes violence and resistance. “I’m also thinking about peace and resolution,” said Thomas. “In this case, the gesture of just stopping the brutality begins the opportunity for us to find peace.”
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That theme of resilience continues down the pathway to the park’s centerpiece: a 43-foot-tall monument, filled with names, designed by Stevenson himself.
“The names come from the 1870 census,” he said. “That was the first time that formerly enslaved people could claim a name that would be recognized by the government, that would be recorded for history.”
“People mostly think that they got all those names from their enslavers, but that’s not necessarily true?” asked Whitaker.
“No,” said Stevenson. “Only about 40% of adopted names were associated with an enslaver, to kind of maintain these kinship lines that had been created on plantations – brothers, sisters, cousins. They wanted to stay connected and they needed a name to bring that together.”
In total, there are 122,000 surnames on the wall, including Whitaker’s own. “Wow. That’s moving, man. That’s moving. And with one T! Those are my people! Those are the one-T Whitakers!”
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Then and now, Stevenson said, the towering memorial is also a metaphor for the hope of a better future in the distance: “We will continue to struggle for the freedom that you died for – that’s what I think we owe those who’ve suffered before us.”
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Story produced by Sara Kugel. Editor: Carol Ross.
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The International Brotherhood of Teamsters says workers at seven Amazon facilities will begin a strike Thursday morning in an effort by the union to pressure the e-commerce giant for a labor agreement during a key shopping period.
The Teamsters say the workers, who authorized walkouts in the past few days, are joining the picket line after Amazon ignored a Dec. 15 deadline the union set for contract negotiations. Amazon says it doesn’t expect any impact on its operations during what the union calls the largest strike against the company in U.S. history.
The Teamsters say they represent nearly 10,000 workers at 10 Amazon facilities, a small portion of the 1.5 million people Amazon employs in its warehouses and corporate offices.
Amazon is ranked No. 2 on the Fortune 500 list of the nation’s largest companies.
At a warehouse in the New York City borough of Staten Island, thousands of workers who voted for the Amazon Labor Union in 2022 and have since affiliated with the Teamsters. At the other facilities, employees – including many delivery drivers – have unionized with them by demonstrating majority support but without holding government-administered elections.
The strikes happening Thursday are taking place at an Amazon warehouse in San Francisco and six delivery stations in southern California, New York City, Atlanta and the Chicago suburb of Skokie, Illinois, according to the union’s announcement. Amazon workers at the other facilities are “prepared to join” them, the union said.
“Amazon is pushing its workers closer to the picket line by failing to show them the respect they have earned,” Teamsters General President Sean M. O’Brien said in a statement.
“If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed. We gave Amazon a clear deadline to come to the table and do right by our members. They ignored it,” he said.
The Seattle-based online retailer has been seeking to re-do the election that led to the union victory at the warehouse on Staten Island, which the Teamsters now represent. In the process, the company has filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the National Labor Relations Board.
Meanwhile, Amazon says the delivery drivers, which the Teamsters have organized for more than a year, aren’t its employees. Under its business model, the drivers work for third-party businesses, called Delivery Service Partners, who drop off millions of packages to customers everyday.
“For more than a year now, the Teamsters have continued to intentionally mislead the public – claiming that they represent ‘thousands of Amazon employees and drivers’. They don’t, and this is another attempt to push a false narrative,” Amazon spokesperson Kelly Nantel said in a statement. “The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union.“
The Teamsters have argued Amazon essentially controls everything the drivers do and should be classified as an employer.
Some U.S. labor regulators have sided with the union in filings made before the NLRB. In September, Amazon boosted pay for the drivers amid the growing pressure.
NEW YORK — The Teamsters union is launching a strike against Amazon at numerous locations across the country, including in Maspeth, Queens.
The Teamsters are calling it the largest strike against Amazon in United States history, and it’s set to begin at 6 a.m. Thursday. In addition to New York City, workers will be joining picket lines in Atlanta, Southern California, San Francisco and Illinois.
In a video announcement released Wednesday night, workers voiced their frustrations.
“Us being strike ready means we’re fed up, and Amazon is clearly ignoring us and we want to be heard,” one worker says in the video.
“It’s really exciting. We’re taking steps for ourselves to win better conditions, better benefits, better wages,” another worker in the video says.
The union says it represents about 10,000 Amazon employees and that Amazon ignored a deadline to come to the table and negotiate. The $2 trillion company doesn’t pay employees enough to make ends meet, the union asserts.
At the height of the holiday season, many are wondering what this means for packages currently in transit.
Teamsters President Sean O’Brien said, “If your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon’s insatiable greed.”
Amazon says Teamsters are misleading the public
An Amazon spokesperson says the Teamsters are misleading the public and do not represent any Amazon employees, despite any claims.
“The truth is that the Teamsters have actively threatened, intimidated, and attempted to coerce Amazon employees and third-party drivers to join them, which is illegal and is the subject of multiple pending unfair labor practice charges against the union,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
An Amazon representative says the company doesn’t expect operations to be impacted.
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