Educators and community members create a dialogue for change
Earlier this summer, 15 educators and community members from Athens, Georgia, walked away from the site of a former slave pen in Montgomery, Alabama, with not only the hopes of creating a dialogue for change, but also a new initiative to commemorate the victims of racial terror lynchings in Athens-Clarke County.
When the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration opened its doors for the first time in late April, University of Georgia College of Education associate professor Jim Garrett and clinical associate professor Sonia Janis saw an opportunity to create a constructive conversation around America’s history of slavery, lynching, and racial violence.
“What I think this kind of trip does is build a community where many of us—across contexts between the university, public schools, and the counselors’ office—are working on the same problem in our different settings,” said Garrett, who also serves as a graduate coordinator in the Department of Educational Theory and Practice. “It’s not uncommon that people, especially white people, aren’t confronted with the history of lynching.”