The other day, my friend Dan sent me a New York Times article about a monument to slaves down in Alabama. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2024/mar/19/freedom-monument-sculpture-park-montgomery-alabama?utm_term=65f98c583d171a4881d543c23b68b8c7&utm_campaign=GuardianTodayUS&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=GTUS_email
My initial response to Dan was nice and cordial. I appreciated the gesture and Dan has a big heart. Compared to Dan, I am the Grinch. Just kidding, people.
Thanks for sharing. Slavery was a part of our past that should be remembered. I am sharing with Jennifer as she is concerned about the perception of whitewashing of history when white and black cousins come together as Old Americans. If I misstated your apprehension about white washing of history, let me know Jen. Personally, I would love to see more monuments and landmarks to the Greatest Generation, the Generation of the 1960s and 1970s who made a New South happen. I would love to see landmarks and monuments throughout the South to Pioneer Black Lawyers.
But the more I slept on it and thought about the slave monument, the more the efforts of my Harvard Law School classmate Bryan Stevenson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bryan_Stevenson did not sit well with me. The following essay is my introspection on these ill feelings.
=======
The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is a 17-acre homage to those who were slaves. The Park is set on the banks of the Alabama River in Montgomery, Alabama. As one might expect, visitors to the park are treated to an emotional experience. One wall portrays the sculptured faces of nameless slave men, one after the other after after the other. The intention and effect is immersive. One can arrive on a boat and imagine one is on a slave ship coming to dock. Remnants of cotton plantations are there for one’s perusal. Holding pens and railroad ways have been constructed to create a feeling tone of bondage.
Stevenson has strived to create a haunting remembrance of what it was like to be a slave. To his credit, the artistry is inspired — a giant hand lifting up from the earth under a tree, a bronze bust of a Black woman sans eyes and torso, a giant ball and chain and open shackle, 122,000 surnames of newly freemen inscribed on a long wall, bricks and elms and oaks.
Stevenson aims for the Holocaust Memorial Museum effect and he succeeds.
=========
So, why do I feel ill at ease? Remembrance of American slavery is a good thing but one can miss the mark. What do I mean?
The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park is not free of Critical Social Justice. The Park is Critical Social Justice incarnate, and bad social justice at that. When interviewed by The Guardian, Stevenson used the words of a dogmatist. I counted the use of dogma and slogan words in the news story — Justice (2), Police brutality, Black bodies, white supremacy, mass incarceration. These words suggest an ideological agenda. One can convey the rich and deep history of our Southern past sans manipulation. See my Pioneer Black Lawyers Series Episodes 1 - 29 in February 2024. Humanity, adversity, triumph over adversity and enterprise do not need to be cloaked in slogan words of the modern era.
Aside from dogma and slogan words as a filter for experiencing history, I feel disaffection with the Slave Park for other reasons. We are living in a time, allegedly, of a high mental health crisis among black children and teenagers.
Is March 27, 2024 the absolute best time to release further demoralization about the Black American experience into the public square? I do not think so. According to a recent Finnish study, Critical Social Justice Attitudes are corrosive of mental health. Social Justice attitudes are “correlated with depression, anxiety, and (lack of) happiness.” https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/sjop.13018 Arguably, Stevenson unfolds in six days a massive Critical Social Justice Park that will lead to more mental health harm for black people.
And make no mistake — the Slave Park is Bad Social Justice soaked in dogma and slogan words of white supremacy, mass incarceration, police brutality, and critical justice.
I would be less apprehensive about the Slave Park if the Monument relayed the truth of faith in slaves cabins and on plantations. Historian Eugene D. Genovese has written in Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made about the centrality of religion to the spiritual survival of a people. https://www.amazon.com/Roll-Jordan-World-Slaves-Made/dp/0394716523 There is no indication from the Guardian article that faith of slaves is recognized and acknowledged as central in the Slave Park. An unserious endeavor.
A Slave Park without religion is like a donut without sugar.
=========
There is a disturbing trend in life today to hyper focus on slavery. It is troubling because one becomes what one focuses on. When asked what was the secret for his success, the founder of Motown Berry Gordy said his secret was focus. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berry_Gordy What message are we sending little children and young teenagers if we urge them to hyper focus on long ago slavery when Black Americans were at their lowest? Could it be that Stevenson’s focus on slavery will dampen, and lessen, the spirits of a people suffering from a mental health crisis of racism as social contagion? Has Stevenson thought though the consequences of a hyper focus on depressing slavery?
I never sense that modern-day Jewish Americans are hyper focused on the Holocaust as a source of depression, anxiety and lack of happiness But Bad Social Justice in the form of the Slave Park may have a negative impact on black children and teenagers.
=========
I am also anxious about the Slave Park because the park reminds us that Black Americans are different from other ethnic groups. There is no single American experience in this view. The Slave Park is an example of identity politics. I wonder how many White Americans or Hispanic Americans or Native Americans will visit the Slave Park. Few, I suspect. So, we are simply talking again about how Black Americans are different from other Americans.
One could construct a monument to black public officials after the Civil War in Alabama. By my count, there were 167 black officeholders in Alabama during Reconstruction. Are these 167 pioneers presented to children and teenagers as a source of inspiration? How about a monument to Congressman Rapier? Congressman Haralson? Let’s do the opposite of Critical Social Justice. Why not lift up the young with the best in our past?
“It’s what you watch, What you listen to, What you read, the people you hang around.”
Here’s an idea — why not a Park to the Pioneer 100 Black Lawyers on the Alabama River in Montgomery, Alabama? I would attend that sort of museum with joy in my heart and a bounce in my step. And I would urge family members to attend as well.
“Be mindful of the things You put into your body Emotionally, spiritually, and physically.”
Instead, we are treated to emotional manipulation as another museum, The Legacy Museum, “draws a compelling line from slavery to mass incarceration.” No such thing. And to assert such a falsehood piles on the mental health crisis created by dogma and slogan words.
Here’s another idea for free — why not a Park devoted to the lives of Free Blacks in the South? There are many, many stories as we have seen in our Pioneer Black Lawyers Series. Stories of agency, adversity, triumph over adversity, enterprise.
I am not a therapist but common sense tells me the life story of Pierre C. Landry will do more for the soul of a black child than a beaten down slave in a Slave Park.
Conclusion: Like Bad Therapy https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Therapy-Kids-Arent-Growing-ebook/dp/B0CBYHTV2D, Bad Social Justice will do more harm than good. The Freedom Monument Sculpture Park in Montgomery is Bad Social Justice. The result will be more depression, anxiety and a lack of happiness among impressionable black children and teenagers. I don’t know what to say to you, Stevenson. You’re in too deep with the dogma and slogan words.
Is it so hard to create 17-acre parks dedicated to the highest points in Black American history? Leaders driven to trumpet the lowest points in our national life are part of the problem, not part of the solution. Even the slaves in Alabama would have taken great pride in their black congressmen and pioneer black lawyers and their faith. Why is Bryant Stevenson incapable of the same pride in the best of us?
“Do not define your identity based on the lowest points in your life.” — Mike Cernovich
“The masters then had to hold the slaves’ religion in contempt, for in truth they feared it.” — Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made by Eugene D. Genovese
I believe the purpose of these memorials is precisely to demoralize the American population Black and White alike…otherwise they would build “Up From Slavery” memorials celebrating progress.
I've always asked if black folks were ever more than slave, and civil rights leaders. Per movies and parks like the one you discuss, the answer would be no. The difference between always looking in the small rearview mirror and looking out the large windshield in front of you, dictates the direction of your mental health and your life. Constantly rolling around in the mud of the past keeps you from the hot shower and soap that's right in front of you.