Tomorrow is opening day for the expanded Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Alabama, with a new focus on the legacy of slavery in America, from the origins of the slave trade through the civil rights era and up to today’s issues.
The museum was created by the Equal Justice Initiative, led by Bryan Stevenson, initially focusing on the history and victims of lynching. Stevenson is known especially for his book Just Mercy and work on issues of mass incarceration, which led to the museum project.
The 40,000-square-foot museum occupies the site of a former cotton warehouse and seeks to focus visitors’ attention on not the humanity of the enslaved people as well as the economic and political connections of slavery.