Civil Rights Memorial

American memorial in Montgomery, Alabama

Civil Rights Memorial

Location| Montgomery, Alabama
Designer| Maya Lin
Material| Granite
Opening date| 1989; 35 years ago (1989)
Website| www.splcenter.org
The Civil Rights Memorial

The Civil Rights Memorial is an American memorial in Montgomery, Alabama, created by Maya Lin. The names of 41 people are inscribed on the granite fountain as martyrs who were killed in the civil rights movement.[1] The memorial is sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center.[2]

## Design

[edit]

The names included in the memorial belong to those who were killed between 1955 and 1968. The dates chosen represent a time when legalized segregation was prominent. In 1954 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that racial segregation in schools was unlawful and 1968 is the year of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. The monument was created by Maya Lin, who also created the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.[2] The Civil Rights Memorial was dedicated in 1989.[1]

The concept of Lin's design is based on the soothing and healing effect of water. It was inspired by a passage from King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech "...we will not be satisfied "until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream..." The quotation in the passage, which is inscribed on the memorial, is a direct paraphrase of Amos 5:24, as translated in the American Standard Version of the Bible. The memorial is a fountain in the form of an asymmetric inverted stone cone. A film of water flows over the base of the cone, which contains the 41 names included. It is possible to touch the smooth film of water and to alter it temporarily, which quickly returns to smoothness. The memorial is designed in a timeline manner. It begins with Brown v. Board in 1954, and ends with Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination in 1968.

## Tours and location

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The memorial is in downtown Montgomery, at 400 Washington Avenue, in an open plaza in front of the Civil Rights Memorial Center, which was the offices of the Southern Poverty Law Center until it moved across the street into a new building in 2001. The memorial may be visited freely 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.[2]

The Civil Rights Memorial Center offers guided group tours, lasting approximately one hour. Tours are available by appointment, Monday to Saturday.[3]

The memorial is only a few blocks from other historic sites, including the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, the Alabama State Capitol, the Alabama Department of Archives and History, the corners where Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks boarded buses in 1955 on which they would later refuse to give up their seats, and the Rosa Parks Library and Museum.

## Names included

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### "Civil Rights Martyrs"

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The 41 names included in the Civil Rights Memorial are those of:[4][5]

* Louis Allen
* Willie Brewster
* Benjamin Brown
* Johnnie Mae Chappell
* James Chaney
* Addie Mae Collins[broken anchor]
* Vernon Dahmer
* Jonathan Daniels
* Henry Hezekiah Dee
* Roman Ducksworth Jr.
* Willie Edwards
* Medgar Evers
* Andrew Goodman
* Paul Guihard
* Samuel Hammond Jr.
* Jimmie Lee Jackson
* Wharlest Jackson
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Bruce W. Klunder
* George W. Lee
* Herbert Lee
* Viola Liuzzo
* Denise McNair
* Delano Herman Middleton
* Charles Eddie Moore
* Oneal Moore
* William Lewis Moore
* Mack Charles Parker
* Lemuel Penn
* James Reeb
* John Earl Reese
* Carole Robertson
* Michael Schwerner
* Henry Ezekial Smith
* Lamar Smith

* Clarence Triggs
* Virgil Lamar Ware
* Cynthia Wesley
* Ben Chester White
* Sammy Younge Jr.

### "The Forgotten"

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"The Forgotten" are 74 people who are identified in a display at the Civil Rights Memorial Center. These names were not inscribed on the Memorial because there was insufficient information about their deaths at the time the Memorial was created.[6] However, it is thought that these people were killed as a result of racially motivated violence between 1952 and 1968.[7]

* Andrew Lee Anderson
* Frank Andrews
* Isadore Banks
* Larry Bolden
* James Brazier
* Thomas Brewer
* Hilliard Brooks
* Charles Brown
* Jessie Brown
* Carrie Brumfield
* Eli Brumfield
* Silas (Ernest) Caston
* Clarence Cloninger
* Willie Countryman
* Vincent Dahmon
* Woodrow Wilson Daniels
* Joseph Hill Dumas
* Pheld Evans
* J. E. Evanston
* Mattie Greene
* Jasper Greenwood
* Jimmie Lee Griffith
* A. C. Hall
* Rogers Hamilton
* Collie Hampton
* Alphonso Harris
* Izell Henry
* Arthur James Hill
* Ernest Hunter
* Luther Jackson
* Ernest Jells
* Joe Franklin Jeter
* Marshall Johnson
* John Lee
* Willie Henry Lee
* Richard Lillard
* George Love
* Robert McNair
* Maybelle Mahone
* Sylvester Maxwell
* Clinton Melton
* James Andrew Miller
* Booker T. Mixon
* Nehemiah Montgomery
* Frank Morris[8]
* James Earl Motley
* Sam O'Quinn
* Hubert Orsby
* Larry Payne
* C. H. Pickett
* Albert Pitts
* David Pitts
* Ernest McPharland
* Jimmy Powell
* William Roy Prather
* Johnny Queen
* Donald Rasberry
* Fred Robinson
* Johnny Robinson
* Willie Joe Sanford
* Marshall Scott Jr.
* Jessie James Shelby
* W. G. Singleton
* Ed Smith
* Eddie James Stewart
* Isaiah Taylor
* Freddie Lee Thomas
* Saleam Triggs
* Hubert Varner
* Clifton Walker[9]
* James Waymers
* John Wesley Wilder
* Rodell Williamson
* Archie Wooden

## See also

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* Civil rights movement in popular culture
* History of fountains in the United States
* Title I of the Civil Rights Act of 1968

## References

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1. ^ a b Scott Johnson (November 5, 2009). "Civil Rights Memorial marks 20 years". Montgomery Advertiser.
2. ^ a b c "Civil Rights Memorial". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
3. ^ "Civil Rights Memorial & Center". Montgomery Area Chamber of Commerce, Convention & Visitor Bureau. Archived from the original on August 26, 2012. Retrieved August 8, 2011.
4. ^ "Civil Rights Martyrs | Southern Poverty Law Center". Splcenter.org. Retrieved 2015-04-11.
5. ^ "The 40 Who Fell in the Turbulence Of the U.S. Battles for Civil Rights". The New York Times. Associated Press. November 4, 1989. Retrieved March 20, 2016.
6. ^ "Civil Rights Memorial". The Forgotten. splcenter.org. 2015. Retrieved 2019-07-19.
7. ^ "The Forgotten". Retrieved 28 June 2017.
8. ^ "Frank Morris Case – The Civil Rights Cold Case Project". coldcases.org. Retrieved 28 June 2017.
9. ^ "Clifton Walker Case – The Civil Rights Cold Case Project". coldcases.org. Retrieved 28 June 2017.

## External links

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* Official Site
* Civil Rights Martyrs

32°22′35″N 86°18′12″W﻿ / ﻿32.37626°N 86.30325°W﻿ / 32.37626; -86.30325

* v
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Civil Rights Memorial

Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC)

Designer|

* Maya Lin

Martyrs|

* Louis Allen
* Willie Brewster
* Benjamin Brown
* Johnnie Mae Chappell
* James Chaney
* Addie Mae Collins
* Vernon Dahmer
* Jonathan Daniels
* Henry Hezekiah Dee
* Roman Ducksworth Jr.
* Willie Edwards
* Medgar Evers
* Andrew Goodman
* Paul Guihard
* Samuel Hammond Jr.
* Jimmie Lee Jackson
* Wharlest Jackson
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Bruce W. Klunder
* George W. Lee
* Herbert Lee
* Viola Liuzzo
* Carol Denise McNair
* Delano Herman Middleton
* Charles Eddie Moore
* Oneal Moore
* William Lewis Moore
* Mack Charles Parker
* Lemuel Penn
* James Reeb
* John Earl Reese
* Carole Robertson
* Michael Schwerner
* Henry Ezekial Smith
* Lamar Smith
* Emmett Till
* Clarence Triggs
* Virgil Lamar Ware
* Cynthia Wesley
* Ben Chester White
* Sammy Younge Jr.

Related|

* Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore
* Mississippi Cold Case

* Civil Rights Movement
* Civil rights movement portal

* v
* t
* e

Civil rights movement (1954–1968)

Events
(timeline)|

| Prior to 1954|

* Journey of Reconciliation
* Executive Order 9981
* Murders of Harry and Harriette Moore
* Sweatt v. Painter (1950)
* McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents (1950)
* Baton Rouge bus boycott

|

1954–1959|

* Brown v. Board of Education
* Bolling v. Sharpe
* Briggs v. Elliott
* Davis v. Prince Edward County
* Gebhart v. Belton
* Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company
* Emmett Till
* Montgomery bus boycott
* Browder v. Gayle
* Tallahassee bus boycott
* Mansfield school desegregation
* 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom
* "Give Us the Ballot"
* Royal Ice Cream sit-in
* Little Rock Nine
* Cooper v. Aaron
* Civil Rights Act of 1957
* Ministers' Manifesto
* Katz Drug Store sit-in
* Kissing Case
* Biloxi wade-ins

1960–1963|

* New Year's Day March
* Sit-in movement
* Greensboro sit-ins
* Nashville sit-ins
* Sibley Commission
* Atlanta sit-ins
* Savannah Protest Movement
* Greenville Eight
* Civil Rights Act of 1960
* Ax Handle Saturday
* Gomillion v. Lightfoot
* Boynton v. Virginia
* University of Georgia desegregation riot
* Rock Hill sit-ins
* Robert F. Kennedy's Law Day Address
* Freedom Rides
* Anniston bombing
* Birmingham attack
* Garner v. Louisiana
* Albany Movement
* Cambridge movement
* University of Chicago sit-ins
* "Second Emancipation Proclamation"
* Meredith enrollment, Ole Miss riot
* Atlanta's Berlin Wall
* "Segregation now, segregation forever"
* Stand in the Schoolhouse Door
* 1963 Birmingham campaign
* Letter from Birmingham Jail
* Children's Crusade
* Birmingham riot
* 16th Street Baptist Church bombing
* John F. Kennedy's speech to the nation on Civil Rights
* Detroit Walk to Freedom
* March on Washington
* "I Have a Dream"
* Big Six
* St. Augustine movement

1964–1968|

* Twenty-fourth Amendment
* Chester school protests
* Bloody Tuesday
* 1964 Monson Motor Lodge protests
* Freedom Summer
* workers' murders
* Civil Rights Act of 1964
* Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States
* Katzenbach v. McClung
* 1964–1965 Scripto strike
* 1965 Selma to Montgomery marches
* "How Long, Not Long"
* Voting Rights Act of 1965
* Harper v. Virginia Board of Elections
* March Against Fear
* White House Conference on Civil Rights
* Chicago Freedom Movement/Chicago open housing movement
* Loving v. Virginia
* Memphis sanitation strike
* King assassination
* funeral
* riots
* Civil Rights Act of 1968
* Poor People's Campaign
* Green v. County School Board of New Kent County
* Jones v. Alfred H. Mayer Co.
* 1968 Olympics Black Power salute

Activist
groups|

* Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights
* Atlanta Negro Voters League
* Atlanta Student Movement
* Black Panther Party
* Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters
* Congress of Racial Equality (CORE)
* Committee for Freedom Now
* Committee on Appeal for Human Rights
* An Appeal for Human Rights
* Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
* Council of Federated Organizations
* Dallas County Voters League
* Deacons for Defense and Justice
* Georgia Council on Human Relations
* Highlander Folk School
* Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights
* Lowndes County Freedom Organization
* Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
* Montgomery Improvement Association
* NAACP
* Youth Council
* Nashville Student Movement
* Nation of Islam
* Northern Student Movement
* National Council of Negro Women
* National Urban League
* Operation Breadbasket
* Regional Council of Negro Leadership
* Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
* Southern Regional Council
* Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
* The Freedom Singers
* United Auto Workers (UAW)
* Wednesdays in Mississippi
* Women's Political Council

Activists|

* Ralph Abernathy
* Victoria Gray Adams
* Zev Aelony
* Mathew Ahmann
* Muhammad Ali
* William G. Anderson
* Gwendolyn Armstrong
* Arnold Aronson
* Ella Baker
* James Baldwin
* Marion Barry
* Daisy Bates
* Harry Belafonte
* James Bevel
* Claude Black
* Gloria Blackwell
* Randolph Blackwell
* Unita Blackwell
* Ezell Blair Jr.
* Joanne Bland
* Julian Bond
* Joseph E. Boone
* William Holmes Borders
* Amelia Boynton
* Bruce Boynton
* Raylawni Branch
* Stanley Branche
* Ruby Bridges
* Aurelia Browder
* H. Rap Brown
* Ralph Bunche
* John H. Calhoun
* Guy Carawan
* Stokely Carmichael
* Johnnie Carr
* James Chaney
* J. L. Chestnut
* Shirley Chisholm
* Colia Lafayette Clark
* Ramsey Clark
* Septima Clark
* Xernona Clayton
* Eldridge Cleaver
* Kathleen Cleaver
* Josephine Dobbs Clement
* Charles E. Cobb Jr.
* Annie Lee Cooper
* Dorothy Cotton
* Claudette Colvin
* Vernon Dahmer
* Jonathan Daniels
* Abraham Lincoln Davis
* Angela Davis
* Joseph DeLaine
* Dave Dennis
* Annie Bell Robinson Devine
* John Wesley Dobbs
* Patricia Stephens Due
* Joseph Ellwanger
* Charles Evers
* Medgar Evers
* Myrlie Evers-Williams
* Chuck Fager
* James Farmer
* Walter Fauntroy
* James Forman
* Marie Foster
* Golden Frinks
* Andrew Goodman
* Robert Graetz
* Fred Gray
* Jack Greenberg
* Dick Gregory
* Lawrence Guyot
* Prathia Hall
* Fannie Lou Hamer
* Fred Hampton
* William E. Harbour
* Vincent Harding
* Dorothy Height
* Audrey Faye Hendricks
* Lola Hendricks
* Aaron Henry
* Oliver Hill
* Donald L. Hollowell
* James Hood
* Myles Horton
* Zilphia Horton
* T. R. M. Howard
* Ruby Hurley
* Cecil Ivory
* Jesse Jackson
* Jimmie Lee Jackson
* Richie Jean Jackson
* T. J. Jemison
* Esau Jenkins
* Barbara Rose Johns
* Vernon Johns
* Frank Minis Johnson
* Clarence Jones
* J. Charles Jones
* Matthew Jones
* Vernon Jordan
* Tom Kahn
* Clyde Kennard
* A. D. King
* C.B. King
* Coretta Scott King
* Martin Luther King Jr.
* Martin Luther King Sr.
* Bernard Lafayette
* James Lawson
* Bernard Lee
* Sanford R. Leigh
* Jim Letherer
* Stanley Levison
* John Lewis
* Viola Liuzzo
* Z. Alexander Looby
* Joseph Lowery
* Clara Luper
* Danny Lyon
* Malcolm X
* Mae Mallory
* Vivian Malone
* Bob Mants
* Thurgood Marshall
* Benjamin Mays
* Franklin McCain
* Charles McDew
* Ralph McGill
* Floyd McKissick
* Joseph McNeil
* James Meredith
* William Ming
* Jack Minnis
* Amzie Moore
* Cecil B. Moore
* Douglas E. Moore
* Harriette Moore
* Harry T. Moore
* Queen Mother Moore
* William Lewis Moore
* Irene Morgan
* Bob Moses
* William Moyer
* Elijah Muhammad
* Diane Nash
* Charles Neblett
* Huey P. Newton
* Edgar Nixon
* Jack O'Dell
* James Orange
* Rosa Parks
* James Peck
* Charles Person
* Homer Plessy
* Adam Clayton Powell Jr.
* Fay Bellamy Powell
* Rodney N. Powell
* Al Raby
* Lincoln Ragsdale
* A. Philip Randolph
* George Raymond
* George Raymond Jr.
* Bernice Johnson Reagon
* Cordell Reagon
* James Reeb
* Frederick D. Reese
* Walter Reuther
* Gloria Richardson
* David Richmond
* Bernice Robinson
* Jo Ann Robinson
* Angela Russell
* Bayard Rustin
* Bernie Sanders
* Michael Schwerner
* Bobby Seale
* Pete Seeger
* Cleveland Sellers
* Charles Sherrod
* Alexander D. Shimkin
* Fred Shuttlesworth
* Modjeska Monteith Simkins
* Glenn E. Smiley
* A. Maceo Smith
* Kelly Miller Smith
* Mary Louise Smith
* Maxine Smith
* Ruby Doris Smith-Robinson
* Charles Kenzie Steele
* Hank Thomas
* Dorothy Tillman
* A. P. Tureaud
* Hartman Turnbow
* Albert Turner
* C. T. Vivian
* A. T. Walden
* Wyatt Tee Walker
* Hollis Watkins
* Walter Francis White
* Roy Wilkins
* Hosea Williams
* Kale Williams
* Robert F. Williams
* Q. V. Williamson
* Andrew Young
* Whitney Young
* Sammy Younge Jr.
* Bob Zellner
* James Zwerg

By region|

* Omaha, Nebraska
* South Carolina

Movement
songs|

* "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round"
* "If You Miss Me at the Back of the Bus"
* "Kumbaya"
* "Keep Your Eyes on the Prize"
* "Oh, Freedom"
* "This Little Light of Mine"
* "We Shall Not Be Moved"
* "We Shall Overcome"
* "Woke Up This Morning (With My Mind Stayed On Freedom)"

Influences|

* Nonviolence
* Padayatra
* Sermon on the Mount
* Mahatma Gandhi
* Ahimsa
* Satyagraha
* The Kingdom of God Is Within You
* Frederick Douglass
* W. E. B. Du Bois
* Mary McLeod Bethune

Related|

* Jim Crow laws
* Lynching in the United States
* Plessy v. Ferguson
* Separate but equal
* Buchanan v. Warley
* Hocutt v. Wilson
* Sweatt v. Painter
* Hernandez v. Texas
* Loving v. Virginia
* African-American women in the movement
* Jews in the civil rights movement
* Fifth Circuit Four
* 16th Street Baptist Church
* Kelly Ingram Park
* A.G. Gaston Motel
* Bethel Baptist Church
* Brown Chapel
* Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
* Holt Street Baptist Church
* Edmund Pettus Bridge
* March on Washington Movement
* African-American churches attacked
* List of lynching victims in the United States
* Freedom Schools
* Freedom songs
* Spring Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam
* "Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence"
* Voter Education Project
* 1960s counterculture
* African American founding fathers of the United States
* Eyes on the Prize

Legacy|

* In popular culture
* Birmingham Civil Rights Institute
* Birmingham Civil Rights National Monument
* Civil Rights Memorial
* Civil Rights Movement Archive
* Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley National Monument
* Medgar and Myrlie Evers Home National Monument
* Freedom Rides Museum
* Freedom Riders National Monument
* King Center for Nonviolent Social Change
* Martin Luther King Jr. Day
* Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial
* other King memorials
* Mississippi Civil Rights Museum
* National Civil Rights Museum
* National Voting Rights Museum
* St. Augustine Foot Soldiers Monument
* Olympic Black Power Statue

Noted
historians|

* Taylor Branch
* Clayborne Carson
* John Dittmer
* Michael Eric Dyson
* Chuck Fager
* Adam Fairclough
* David Garrow
* David Halberstam
* Vincent Harding
* Steven F. Lawson
* Doug McAdam
* Diane McWhorter
* Charles M. Payne
* Thomas E. Ricks
* Timothy Tyson
* Akinyele Umoja
* Movement photographers

Civil rights movement portal

Authority control databases: National |

* United States
* Israel

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