Ava DuVernay, the Oscar-nominated director of Selma and A Wrinkle in Time, has described the struggle she is having with her latest work, a five-part drama series for Netflix on the Central Park Five.
DuVernay said she was having a hard time finding the voice of the five teenagers who were wrongfully convicted of the rape of a Central Park jogger in 1989. The trouble comes, she said, from the difficulty finding any material from the time that told the story from the teenager’s perspective.
“I pored through every trial transcript, I’ve read everything about that case, and they have no voice. Even the voice they were given – in their forced confessions – was not their own voice. Every single thing, even their voice in the confession, is not their own.
“It’s flipped inside out. Every day I feel I’m wrestling with the story to try and turn it around, make it their story.”
As DuVernay was speaking, she pointed to the audience and invited a man in the front row to stand up. When Yusef Salaam rose he got a standing ovation. Salaam served more than five years in prison for a crime that he didn’t commit, having been released in 2002 along with the others of the Central Park Five.
Remarkably, no-one mentioned Donald Trump who spent a reported $85,000 to buy whole pages in New York newspapers calling for the five teenagers to be executed.
‘To go to that memorial is transforming’
We got a chance to interview Gloria Steinem. Despite battling laryngitis, the feminist icon spoke with us about the power of visiting the memorial and the fight for racial justice within the women’s rights movement.
“We have this horrendous history of slavery and lynchings ... and we don’t learn this in school,” she said. “Germany for instance does a much better job than we do of acknowledging what happened. If you don’t, it remains like a kind of magnet that influences the future.”
Steinem continued, “I know there are people who say, ‘Why bring this up? Why bring up all this pain?’ But I think you have to, otherwise it remains a magnet that dictates the future ...” She noted that some Native Americans say “it takes four generations to heal one act of violence”, adding that she hopes the memorial and museum help with that healing. “The memorial has a huge impact, because you see the names of real people, real places, what happened ... I thought I knew, actually. I’ve read all about this. I thought I knew. I think no matter how much you think you know, to go to that memorial is transforming.”
She also shared a story of her most powerful experience at the monument – meeting a man who had been arrested as a teenager for a crime he did not commit, who was incarcerated for decades as a result.
“He was a man of such depth and such profound gentleness, it both made me sad because of the years of life he lost, and also gave me faith in human beings. In spite of all the ways he had been treated and diminished, he enlarged me just by talking.”
One of the most common themes this week in Montgomery is just how little most Americans really know about the true scale and incomprehensible brutality of lynching. For a long time that was even true for Michelle Duster, the great granddaughter of Ida B Wells-Barnett, the nation’s most tireless and celebrated anti-lynching advocate.
“As a young child I was shielded from exactly the extent of the violence that she lived through and chronicled,” Duster told the Guardian.
“It wasn’t really until I was a full-grown adult and decided to do more digging on my own that I became aware of the full extent of just how barbaric the lynchings were.”
Wells-Barnett criss-crossed the south in the late nineteenth century collecting accounts of lynchings and became a prolific publisher of editorial pamphlets on the subject that debunked mythology and put the full outrage of the phenomenon on display. This was even after mobs had destroyed her business and chased her out of her home in Memphis, Tennessee for her writing.
Duster said even with knowing how important her great grandmother’s work on lynching was, she was still surprised by just how large her presence looms in the museum, with multiple exhibits dedicated to Wells-Barnett.
“I’m so happy to see that her impact, the contribution that she made to this country is getting told by as many people as possible, because I think she should be a household name,” said Duster, who is a professor of business writing at Columbia College in Chicago. “People need to know who she was and she’s not just African-American history, she is American history.
“I think anybody who knows her story, would be inspired by what she did.”
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Sam Levin is at the memorial, and took more pictures of the row of plaques outlining the many shocking reasons black Americans were lynched. From “frightening a white girl” to “standing around” in a white neighborhood to “vagrancy”, here’s a Twitter thread with a small handful of the horrific stories.
I’m posting here a small handful of the many horrifying stories of lynching told at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama pic.twitter.com/ssAdjXLhCB
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
For “rejecting a white merchant’s bid for cottonseed” pic.twitter.com/h8yOrEvbYj
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
After a man voted in 1884, a white mob burned his home, lynched his elderly mother and two young daughters pic.twitter.com/7L0aJuIiab
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
For “arguing” with the owner of the plantation where he worked and lived pic.twitter.com/ahsbqMlkHQ
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
As the museum notes with a message in large lettering, thousands of murders were likely never recorded and will not be remembered: “Thousands of African Americans are unknown victims of racial terror lynchings whose deaths cannot be documented, many whose names will never be known.”
A powerful reminder at the memorial to lynching victims: “Thousands of African Americans are unknown victims of racial terror lynchings whose deaths cannot be documented, many whose names will never be known.” pic.twitter.com/l5ktqEIl2e
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
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The moderator in this afternoon’s debate at the EJI summit has just asked the feminist writer Gloria Steinem and civil rights and anti-poverty activist Marian Wright Edelman to tell us what they would say to someone who, in this hyper-partisan age, did not agree with them.
Steinem framed her answer in terms of human interactions. The key was to find what she called the “path to empathy. It starts with talking and telling our stories. Listening to each other’s stories is the basis of everything, as through that we realize we are not alone.”
Wright Edelman said that talking was fine, but action was all important. The Founder of the Children’s Defense Fund said that basic needs had to be met: “Children should not be dying from guns, there shouldn’t be unequal education, we should organize and vote. This is movement time. Don’t come here and celebrate this museum without thinking that there are even greater levels of harm, in some ways, happening today.”
‘My family came from slaves’
Brittany Willie, 19, said she didn’t know much about the death of James Nance, her grandmother’s grandfather whose name is honored at the new lynching memorial in Montgomery.
Brittany Willie, 19, from Huntsville, Alabama, at the site of her great great grandfather’s memorial, James Nance: “For so long, society has put a shadow over these things. This museum is long overdue.” She said she doesn’t know much about the lynching that killed her ancestor. pic.twitter.com/O5xUXhqJ0n
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
“It’s real. This is my family,” she said as she touched Nance’s name, located on a block recognizing victims from Madison county, Alabama. “My family came from slaves.”
Willie, from Huntsville, said she didn’t know how or why her great-great grandfather was killed, but that she believed he was a leader in his community: “I would’ve never thought I would come here and see his name ... It’s just astonishing.”
“I really feel overwhelmed.” pic.twitter.com/XZqw1P5RBZ
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
‘It’s emotionally overwhelming’
She added, “I really feel overwhelmed, mainly because of the fact that most of these people were innocent. They didn’t do anything. They were just minding their business ... For so long, society has put a shadow over these things. This museum is long overdue.”
Chris Mosley, a 49-year-old from Birmingham, said he felt mixed emotions at the memorial:
“This is for young people ... so they can understand the history of this country” - Chris Mosley, 49, of Birmingham pic.twitter.com/4hVVcoF7Ec
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Joanna Millstein, a 23-year-old from New York, said the memorial felt like “the funeral of thousands”, adding, “It feels like you’re paying tribute and homage to thousands of people all at once, so it’s really kind of emotionally overwhelming.”
“This memorial feels like you’re at the funeral of thousands” - Joanna Millstein, 23, from New York pic.twitter.com/jDNMOpPwug
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
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I’m now at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice for its grand opening, where hundreds of visitors are exploring the powerful monument to thousands of lynching victims. Here are some of their reflections on site.
Wretha Hudson, a 73-year-old Montgomery resident, said, “I hope it’s an eye opener, because a lot of people want us to forget about what’s happened, but that’s forgetting our ancestors ... How can you forget your roots?”
“To me, this is more than just a memorial. It’s also a sacred place because my ancestors paid the ultimate price.” - Wretha Hudson, a 73-year-old Montgomery native pic.twitter.com/FN8v8ZopLg
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Janae Peters, a 29-year-old teacher from Birmingham, came with a few of her students: “Honestly, it was heavy. ... But to see this, it begins the healing process.”
Janae Peters, 29, a Birmingham teacher: “Walking in here, you feel the south, you feel the kinds of things we learned and inherited intergenerationally.” pic.twitter.com/7Ej6zkfugF
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Victoria Dunn and Corey Sledge, a couple from Montgomery, said they hoped the city would embrace this site.
“This is something our children need to know, so they can understand the struggle,” Dunn said.
Victoria Dunn, 40, and Corey Sledge, 40, couple from Montgomery, visiting the memorial on day one: “This is something our children need to know, so they can understand the struggle.” pic.twitter.com/Xbhf6w2LLw
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
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Jesse Jackson: ‘lynching penetrates the consciousness’
Jesse Jackson has had more personal experience of racial violence than most people, having participated in the Selma to Montgomery civil rights marches and having been present at the assassination of Martin Luther King 50 years ago. He also grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, under the shadow of lynching.
Jackson is today back in Montgomery for the opening of the new museum and memorial, and he’s just shared with the Guardian his memories of lynching in his childhood. He recalled in particular the lynching of Willie Earle in Greenville in 1947 when Jackson was just six years old. “They took him out of jail, stabbed him repeatedly, blew his brains out, left him in the gutter dead.
Jackson spoke movingly about the impact of that terrible event. “Unlike regular murders, lynching penetrates the consciousness,” he said. “They go a long way to effecting one’s psyche. One person is killed, but the whole community is lynched psychologically.”
The civil rights firebrand said that the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice, that commemorates the more than 4,000 black people who were lynched, is unlike anything in the world. But he added that it would be a long, hard road to get it recognized among the white descendants of lynchers.
“For there to be reconciliation, both sides must be willing to reconcile. For there to be healing, you have to take the glass out of the wound,” he said.
Last week Jackson was in South Africa for the funeral of Winnie Mandela, and that, he suggested, gave a sense of the challenge America now faces. “There were 60,000 in the stadium for Winnie’s funeral, and maybe 100 whites. So you speak of reconciliation. There’s unfinished work to be done.”
Below are some striking statistics about racial violence in America, courtesy of the Legacy Museum’s powerful exhibits on slavery, lynchings and the US prison system.
The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, which chronicles racial violence from slavery to lynchings to segregation to mass incarceration. pic.twitter.com/2OJMHJOdIO
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
-12m kidnapped into the slave trade
-More than 4,000 killed in racial terror lynchings
-9m African Americans terrorized by the threat of lynching violence
-8m Americans under criminal control
-Thousands currently in prison who wrongly convicted, according to EJI estimates
-More than 70m Americans have arrest records
-In 1980, $6bn was spent on prisons and jails, skyrocketing to $80bnlast year
-The number of women sent to prison has increased by 646% in the last 25 years
In a passage reminiscent of late-career Martin Luther King, Rev Barber zeroed in on poverty as a force as destructive as that of lynching.
“Upwards of 200,000 people die every year from low-wealth,” Barber said. “Yes we should be horrified that 5,000 people were lynched from the 1860s to the 1940s, but today 250,000 die from low wealth, that’s more than die from heart attacks, strokes and cancer.
“Yes we should be in the street in America when one or two or three unarmed black men are killed in the street by police… But if we should be in the streets over [that], surely if 250,00 are dying we should call that a modern day political lynching.”
‘I dare you’!’
Rev Barber invites the crowd up and in a full volume preacher’s oratory, leads the following call and response:
If they kept fighting
In the face of lynch mobs
I dare you to be scared of Trump!
I dare you to be afraid of modern day white nationalists!
They must not know who we are!
We are the sons and daughters of those that kept on!
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Rev William Barber, a southerner, on the prevalence of lynching here:
“This was done even in the bible belt, where so many people put their hands on the bible and don’t know what’s in it.”
Barber chastised what he called “my so called Christian evangelicals who say so much about what god says so little, and so little about what god said so much...
“In proverbs it says these are six things that god hates, seven that are an abomination.”
None of them are about or abortion or being gay, Barber noted. But it does say that god hates “looking down on people and a lying tongue.”
Barber went on: “Jesus was lynched. Jesus was an innocent victim of mob hysteria. Both the cross and the lynching tree were symbols of terror.”
For readers who want to understand how pervasive lynchings were until the 1950s, Jamiles Lartey wrote an in-depth explainer. He notes that lynchings were photographed to be turned into postcards, and body parts were even used as souvenirs.
Updated
After opening with a prayer, Rev Barber has taken the stage here at the summit in Montgomery.
“There’s a certain solumness standing here today... There’s a quietness in my spirit as i think about those containers of dirt,” Barber said, referencing the jars of earth from lynching sites that have been collected and displayed at the museum.
“I want to talk about memorializing those who were lynched then, and building a movement against lynching now.”
Updated
From slavery to high tech alternatives to incarceration
Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, the 2010 book that sparked a huge nationwide debate about mass incarceration of African Americans and how it has become the modern equivalent of Southern segregation, has just given us a fascinating and scary warning about the future.
She told the Guardian that she fears there is such a desire for a reduction in the US prison population – 2.3m people are currently behind bars – that if we aren’t careful it could lead to a whole new generation of even worse treatment.
In particular, she’s worried about high-tech so-called “alternatives” to prison that sound pretty awful. They include GPS monitoring that Alexander said could expand into permanent surveillance of individuals or communities lasting decades, and home surveillance systems where people are kept prison by being forever watched.
“So many private prison companies are getting into the business of developing high-tech alternatives to incarceration, so that the same communities that were once locked in literal cages and cycling in and out of giant cement buildings will instead be subject to perpetual high-tech surveillance and control,” she said.
Alexander left us with an exhortation: “I hope we keep our eye on the ball and remember the goal isn’t simply to close prisons but to put an end to the mindset that made prisons and the need for control necessary in the first place.”
Updated
‘The inhumanity of it all’
Still at the legacy museum, Felicia Ishino, 40, came from Seattle with her daughter Isis Ishino-Amen, 20. Isis said she was shocked to learn the details of how slaves were sold: “They treated them like livestock, like animals ... To describe people that way, my ancestors that way, it made me sad and horrified ... It’s a lot to take in.”
Mother and daughter Felicia Ishino and Isis Ishino-Amen came from Seattle for the opening of the Legacy Museum in Montgomery. pic.twitter.com/aM8CzErOLp
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Eric Alexander, 41, said he was incarcerated for more than 10 years and that it was powerful to see the injustices of the prison system on display.
He said he was particularly moved by the story of one prisoner who nearly died behind bars: “To hear his testimony, it made me cry, to hear he almost lost his life.”
Eric Alexander, a formerly incarcerated visitor at the Legacy Museum, reflecting on the history of lynchings: “What touched me the most was the inhumanity of it all. ... I didn’t realize people were that brazen.” pic.twitter.com/QRjmMVBEHJ
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Alexander said he was also stunned by the historic newspaper coverage of lynchings: “I didn’t realize people were that brazen. That’s what touched me the most – the inhumanity of it all.”
Updated
A few pictures of the memorial. Its design was partly inspired by the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, and the Apartheid Museum in Johannesburg.
Updated
Former vice president Al Gore made an appearance at the summit. He will be taking part in a session tomorrow focusing on environmental justice.
It is such an honor to be here in Montgomery, Alabama at the @MemPeaceJustice. Thank you Bryan Stevenson & @eji_org for inviting me to speak about environmental justice at this important memorial. pic.twitter.com/XgA0tPCFzS
— Al Gore (@algore) April 26, 2018
The second session at the Summit will see Reverend Dr William Barber address the audience.
Rev Barber is the founder of the Poor People’s Campaign, itself influenced from the work of Martin Luther King. It is the first organised campaign of civil disobedience in the Donald Trump era, aiming to “bring moral revival across the US”.
Our reporter Oliver Laughland profiled Rev Barber here:
“We have to remember that the civil rights movement did not just end,” says Barber before the evening service. “It was assassinated by killing the leaders, it was assassinated through division. Throughout our trips, what we’re finding is there is still a need for that coalition that Dr King talked about in ’68 in coming together to address the evils of racism, militarism, systemic poverty and ecological devastation.”
Updated
Still at the Legacy museum, I talked to Lonnell Williams, 49, from Atlanta, who said it was inspiring to realize how much black Americans have overcome: “African Americans are still thriving in this country, despite relentless oppression. When you walk out of something like that, you feel like there’s nothing to fear.”
He said he has been waiting a long time for this museum to open and that he wanted to be there on the first day: “It’s very, very important to me to occupy these spaces ... It was powerful, and it was empowering.”
Lonnell Williams, 49, from Atlanta: “African Americans are still thriving in this country, despite relentless oppression.” At @eji_org museum. pic.twitter.com/h8q0jKKwqx
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Danielle McCoy, a 41-year-old lawyer from Washington DC, said, “It made me very proud, because I’ve never seen the story described in such a succinct and coherent way.” She said she felt inspired by the experience: “It motivated me to do more. Martin Luther King Jr was in his 20s when he was doing this work. It made me think, what am I doing? Am I creating enough change? Am I pushing the needle far enough? ... It invigorated me.”
Danielle McCoy, after visiting the Legacy Museum: “It motivated me to do more. It invigorated me.” pic.twitter.com/8gKU8Ztnp7
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
‘Visitors are in tears’
The Legacy Museum, which chronicles slavery, lynching, segregation and mass incarceration, opened to packed crowds of visitors from across the US this morning.
Inside are striking images, videos and stories of racial violence, including newspaper clippings advertising lynchings and interactive footage of men and women behind bars. Some visitors were moved to tears in the first few hours of its public launch. Below are some reactions from the first group of attendees.
Tao Finklea, a 30-year-old from Vredenburgh, Alabama, said he never imagined his home state would host a museum like this: “This is an awakening for the state. And this is a wake-up call for the south ... I hope this becomes an experience of shared pain.”
I’m at the opening of the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, chronicling racial violence in America. Many visitors inside are in tears. Tao Finklea, from Vredenbugh, AL: “This is an awakening for the state.” pic.twitter.com/dG6kS5R7lt
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Glenda Lingo, a 68-year-old visitor from Nashville, said the museum was “long overdue”, adding, “It’s the history we’ve tried to hide for so many years. There’s no denying it anymore ... This has to start being in our history books. It’s the atrocities of white people in America ... I hope people are forced to see the truth.”
Glenda Lingo, a Nashville visitor at the Legacy Museum: “I hope people are forced to see the truth ... it’s the history we’ve tried to hide for so many years.” pic.twitter.com/1kgmqcwNAZ
— Sam Levin (@SamTLevin) April 26, 2018
Updated
Michelle Alexander on the idea of the “resistance” in the Trump era:
“I have some difficulty with us framing ourselves as part of a resistance because as I see it, Trump and company are the resistance. There is a new America struggling to be born as part of that river of activism from the days of abolition on down and it’s beautiful to see it blooming in so many ways,” referencing struggles for LGBT rights, Dreamers, The movement for black lives, and protests at Standing Rock.”
“Trump is the resistance. They see this new America being born and they say no, let’s go back.”
Stay tuned for the second panel of the day at the summit.
Updated
Still at the summit, Sherrilyn Ifill brought up the recent video of a black woman’s arrest at an Alabama Waffle House restaurant in a discussion on the connection between lynching and the “assault on the dignity of black women”.
“When I saw their indifference to her nakedness ... it reminded me of [Mississippi civil rights leader] Fannie Lou Hammer and her account of being beaten and how she tried to keep her dress down. This assault on the dignity of black woman should not be dismissed either. When we talk about lynching we’re talking about people who were killed but assaults, and assaults on dignity were a key part of the way that black were and are engaged around white supremacy.”
“It is part of a connected narrative on who black women are in our society... and how white supremacy must dominate black women: Must dominate their voices. Must dominate their freedom. Must insist that they do not carry within them the kind of compassion and love and tenderness this has been associated with white women.”
Updated
The first panel of the day in Montgomery features:
- Jelani Cobb, New Yorker columnist and Columbia Journalism professor
- Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow
- Sherrilyn Ifill, president & director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund
Alexander opened by discussing idea that the museum is part of a movement to create a new kind of America:
“Beyond truth, beyond reconciliation ... Part of what is happening here is the birth of a new nation. We are at a time in our history when confederate statues are coming down and new museums are coming up.
This isn’t just the work of creating a more perfect union because our nation was never perfect. It isn’t about just improving this nation, this is the work of birthing a new nation.”
The three went on to discuss the connections between lynching and the modern criminal justice system.
“Is it too much to say that lynching is foundational to the relationship of African Americans and criminal justice?” Cobb asked.
“No”, Ifill said confidently. “It was a fundamental breakdown in the criminal justice system … There’s a story to be told the role that local prosecutors play in refusing to seriously try and prosecute the lynchers even though everyone knew who they were.”
Updated
The summit is opening with its first session, a discussion between journalist Michelle Alexander and academic Sherrilyn Ifill chaired by journalist Jelani Cobb.
@eji_org and Bryan Stevenson kicks of the Peace and Justice Summit by welcoming @Sifill_LDF @jelani9 and Michelle Alexander to the stage. pic.twitter.com/agxdEYFcBp
— Khalil G. Muhammad (@KhalilGMuhammad) April 26, 2018
Karen Branan is one of the only white journalist in America who has investigated her own family’s past and their involvement in lynchings.
In an essay she wrote for The Guardian, she explains what pushed her to undergo this years-long quest:
What is your most unforgettable memory? I asked my 90-year-old grandmother, the sheriff’s widow.
“The hanging,” she replied without pause. She told me of a woman and some men “hanged” in the open, downtown, “for a murder”.
She was 17 at the time, living in Hamilton, Georgia. I thought she was talking about white people found guilty under law, so I let it be. Something in me was not yet ready to descend that deep staircase into my grandparents’ and the nation’s bloody basement.
Two years later, in 1986, I learned I was to be the grandmother of a racially mixed grandchild and I, who had worked and written for years about racial justice, suddenly found myself keeping her a secret from my family in Georgia for fear of their racist reaction.
John Legend is at the Summit. In a series of tweets, he made the case of why the opening of this memorial is such a groundbreaking event, to this day.
I imagine there's some comfort in imagining a future without racism and projecting that onto the present. Thinking if we just deny the truth, it doesn't exist. If history is erased, we don't have to deal with its consequences. However...
— John Legend (@johnlegend) April 25, 2018
Far too many people don't have the luxury of closing their eyes and ears. They feel it in their lives and can't act like what they see and know doesn't exist.
— John Legend (@johnlegend) April 25, 2018
Anyway, y'all need to come to Montgomery and see this memorial
— John Legend (@johnlegend) April 25, 2018
On the day America's first memorial to victims of lynching opens, the local paper in Montgomery, Albama prints a front page apology. 'We were wrong'. It recognises its 'shameful past.. false narratives' in how it covered 'the horrors of our past'. pic.twitter.com/AES9CDbb9W
— john mulholland (@jnmulholland) April 26, 2018
At the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, inscriptions explain why people would be lynched by white mobs. The crimes” committed were often breathtakingly minor.
Robert Mallard, for example, was lynched for daring to vote.
Elizabeth Lawrence was lynched for reprimanding children.
Jesse Thornton did not give the “right” title to a police officer. He was lynched for that.
Henry Patterson asked a white woman for a drink of water.
Updated
Hello and welcome
At the top of a grassy Alabama hill, set against the open sky, more than 800 steel cylinders hang from roof beams. Each represents an American county and carries the names of those brutally killed there by lynching.
This is America’s first memorial to lynching – a reign of racial terror that shapes race relations today.
The memorial and its companion museum, opened by the Equal Justice Initiative, aim to pay homage to the 4,400 men and women killed by savage extrajudicial mobs up until the 1950s. But it also wants visitors to reflect on this past and the insidious legacy of racism, from slavery to today’s overwhelming mass incarceration of young black men.
Over the next two days, the Guardian is offering special coverage of the monument’s historic opening. Five members of our staff have travelled to Montgomery to cover the event on the ground, with live reports and interviews with the team behind the monument.
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