‘Nothing is lost’: Mourning and memory at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice

Abstract

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice is the first national memorial to Black victims of lynching. Its purpose is to provoke a confrontation with the United States’ racial past, in the hope that truth will lead to racial justice. This article argues that in remembering the dead, the Lynching Memorial also allows and encourages visitors to mourn. During the peak of racial lynchings in the early twentieth century, it could be difficult or even dangerous for the bereaved to publicly mourn Black victims. The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, therefore, provides a delayed opportunity for the Black community to mourn those losses. But it also encourages visitors of other races to mourn too. The memorial facilitates mourning through the visitors’ relationship to the monuments, and the echoing of Black mourning traditions. In publicly mourning for these victims, visitors acknowledge and insist on the grievability of Black lives, something which white supremacy has long sought to deny. This article, therefore, argues for the radical potential for mourning at sites of commemoration as a step towards justice.