Alright baby, go ahead and stop here in front of the memorial.Now this stop’s not officially part of the Civil Rights Trail — the trail road may be partially blocked for now because of construction on the new Elevation Hotel — but make no mistake: this place matters.The EJI Memorial to Peace and Justice honors over 4,000 Black men, women, and children who were lynched in America. Some for voting. Some for standing tall. Some… for nothing at all.But lynching didn’t disappear. It just changed its shape.During the Montgomery Bus Boycott, fear was still used as a weapon. After Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat, we said, "enough," and stopped riding the buses. But folks still needed to get to work. So we built a system — our own ride sharing network long before Uber. Volunteer drivers, pickup stations, printed schedules, coordinated with care. My sister drove one of those routes — and one of the stations was right on the other side of this memorial.I remember her asking our daddy, “Why me?” And just as simple he said, without flinching, “Because folks gotta go to work.”That boycott lasted 381 days. And it worked. The city lost over 70% of its bus revenue. But more than that, we showed them that dignity would not be negotiated — not with fear, not with force.People were threatened, harassed, even beaten for giving rides. The same kind of hatred memorialized here at EJI — it was still alive in ’55. Just dressed in different clothes. And during the march we were fighting for our rights in the face of police dogs, water hoses, and tear gas. So if you haven’t been inside this memorial yet, baby, make a plan. Walk among the names. Let it teach you what history tried to bury. Teach you what people do to one another when they view somebody else as less Now let’s rejoin the trail. Head down the hill, and just past the post office, take a left. I’ll see you at the next stop.
