I have great respect for Bryan Stevenson and the EJI. Their achievements have been staggering, but — you expected that, didn’t you? After the rhetorical flourish of praise (or is it a marketing move), there will come the comment or the question with a little bit of an edge. Let’s try again.

I have great respect for Bryan Stevenson and the EJI. However, in all I have researched, I cannot find a position on the 2nd Amendment. Many of the EJI clients, especially the children condemned to life without parole, have those sentences because of the ease of access to guns. They either used the weapon themselves to kill a much larger and dominant adult, usually male, or were implicated in a killing with a gun. 

Gun violence permeates the history of segregation in the 20th century. Shooting lynching victims before or after they were strung up was not uncommon. Martin Luther King – shot. Bobby Kennedy – shot. Medgar Evers – shot. 

The Mississippi Civil Rights Museum focuses on the Civil Rights struggle from 1945 to 1970. Consequently, it is not as comprehensive as the Legacy Museum. It shares a building with the Museum of Mississippi History — a single entry ticket allows visitors to turn left for the history of Mississippi or right for the Civil Rights record — it is the only state-sponsored museum to civil rights.

The Civil Rights museum is in many ways ultimately celebratory. Areas focused on different aspects of the struggle radiate from a central atrium. The ceilings are high, in some places soaring with promise, and in others soaring with a sense of the overwhelming scope of the struggle. Media management and display design rival the experiences at the Legacy Museum. Within each of the areas are smaller and more intimate sections with a specific focus on a particular story. For example, a mockup of a church is instrumented so that the visitor hears a service then sees lights and hears the brutal noises that simulate a fire bombing. The windows glow orange, the building seems to shake. Or a jail cell with displays of the secreted communications from the many imprisoned freedom workers whose mug shots go from floor to ceiling, making the whole space wallpapered with faces that are black, white, male, female, young, old, wealthy, or poor, usually haggard or ill-rested but always clear-eyed.

The Medgar Evers experience is particularly well-crafted. The small theater, without seats, faces a scrim that can become a projection screen, but when back lit, shows a living room with a black and white TV from the sixties, playing TV reports of interviews and Evers’ televised speech from that day. The TV segment with Medgar Evers speaking is followed by racist telephone recordings from the TV station switchboard that flooded in after Evers had been given air time. This recreation sets the stage for his murder. At the dramatic moment of the telling, Ever’s assassination in his driveway, a case on the wall that had been dark suddenly illuminates and just as suddenly goes dark again. It is the gun that killed Evers that flashes in the case. 

When I exited the museum, staff asked me if I thought the gun in the Medgar Ever’s exhibit was too jarring and a cheap trick, like a jump scare in a horror movie. She indicated there is a running staff debate about its display and integration into the exhibit. She did remark, however, that the museum felt lucky to own the weapon. She ask, “Can you imagine what trophy this might be in private hands, especially in a Neo-Nazi cell?” Reminders that as celebratory as the museum is in documenting the success of the movement, constant vigilance and commitment is still required.

Since my visit to Montgomery, I have thought more about guns and am reminded of Yevtushenko’s poem from the Cold War. I remember reading in Time magazine, where it was excerpted in the early 70s, when I was trying to understand gun violence in America that included the killings at Kent State. 

The Statue of Liberty’s color
Grows ever more deathly pale
As, loving freedom with bullets
And taking liberty with bullets,
You shoot at yourself, America
(Freedom to Kill, 1970)

In the six weeks between my visit to the EJI memorials and the end of the year, over 50 people have died in mass shootings (defined as incidents where more than four victims, either killed or wounded) throughout America. This included the horrific incident at Brown University, which struck particularly close to me as I had worked there, have friends who still work there, and know many people who had attended and graduated from Brown. Rhode Island had up until then seemed safe from the mass violence, despite incidents in both Connecticut, memorably Sandy Hook, and Massachusetts, John Salvi’s attacks on abortion clinics. 

While removing guns already in circulation is a non-starter in America, controlling access to bullets might be possible. Currently, no state limits the amount of ammunition an individual can purchase; a very few states require background checks, permits, or ID for purchase, but none limit the amount. It is easier to buy bullets than it is to buy Sudafed for a cold. Sudafed contains pseudoephedrine, a precursor to creating meth (methanamphetamine), a scourge of a drug, mostly abused in rural areas and largely by white people. A twist in the mass incarceration story that parallels the powdered cocaine, crack cocaine differentials to favor and demean by race who are struggling. I wonder how many caught in the net of mass incarceration are there because of guns and gun violence. Many of the notable death row cases, as well as those of children convicted as adults, have guns as a central part of their cases. 

PS) Since the original posting again America is wracked with gun violence, this time state-sponsored in the killing of Renee Good in Minneapolis.