The Legacy Sites: A History of Racial Injustice [9781580937320]

Overview

The Legacy Sites is a compelling and visually rich book exploring the groundbreaking work of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) through its transformative public spaces: the Legacy Museum, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, brought together here for the first time. Through striking photography and powerful narrative, this volume invites readers to engage deeply with America’s long and ongoing struggle for racial justice.

Founded by acclaimed public interest lawyer and New York Times bestselling author Bryan Stevenson, the Equal Justice Initiative has redefined how a nation can reckon with its past. This book serves not only as a guide to the three Legacy Sites in Montgomery, Alabama, but as a meditation on the power of memory, the importance of truth-telling, and the hope found in justice-oriented action.

The book is organized into three immersive chapters — each dedicated to one of the Legacy Sites — and designed to reflect the distinct but interconnected missions of each location. First opened in 2018, with the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and the original Legacy Museum, the three sites welcome hundreds of thousands of visitors each year.

The Legacy Museum sits on a site where enslaved people were once forced to labor in bondage. It traces the direct line from enslavement to mass incarceration through original research, powerful exhibits, and digital storytelling. This chapter delves into how the Museum reclaims historical spaces to confront visitors with the realities of racial terror and the enduring consequences of systemic injustice.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, often referred to as the nation’s first Memorial to victims of racial terror lynchings, is a solemn and stunning outdoor space of remembrance. This chapter features moving photographs of its iconic suspended steel monuments — each representing a U.S. county where lynchings occurred — and explores the role of public memorials in collective healing. Woven throughout are stories of the victims and communities represented, grounding the Memorial in personal and historical narrative.

Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, EJI’s newest and most expansive site overlooking the Alabama River, honors the lives and resilience of enslaved people through outdoor sculpture, narrative, historical artifacts, and interpretive installations. Spanning multiple acres, it creates a contemplative space where art, history, and landscape converge. Artists featured include: Simone Leigh, Hank Willis Thomas, Rose B. Simpson, Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, and Alison Saar.

Together, these sites form one of the most ambitious and visionary public history projects in the United States. The book captures not just their physical presence, but their emotional and intellectual impact — showing how architecture, narrative, and memorial can shift national conversations.

Designed for educators, students, museumgoers, activists, and anyone interested in American history, this book is both a tribute and a call to action. Through the lens of the Equal Justice Initiative, readers are reminded that while history cannot be changed, it can be confronted — and through that confrontation, transformed.