“Each of us is more than the worst thing we've ever done.”
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson.
Statesboro - Bulloch Remembrance Project
"If you love your community, then you need to be insisting on justice in all circumstances." Bryan Stevenson
This Project is coordinated by the Statesboro-Bulloch Remembrance Coalition, a county-wide initiative dedicated to helping our community understand and begin to heal its legacy of lynching and legal terrorism used to enforce racial subordination. We believe this is necessary work in creating a welcoming community bound by equity and inclusion. Variegated in our humanity, we believe truth-telling is fundamental to reconciliation and healing. Justice requires this reconciliation for the good order, peace, and dignity of our community as a whole and of all who live or visit here. Our purpose is twofold: To memorialize local victims of racial violence, especially the nine who were lynched here between 1886 and 1911, and to foster meaningful dialogue about race and justice today. We are partners with the Equal Justice Initiative based in Montgomery, Alabama.
The Equal Justice Initiative
The Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a private, nonprofit organization that challenges poverty and racial injustice, advocates for equal treatment in the criminal justice system, and creates hope for marginalized communities. EJI opened The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama in 2018.
The EJI published Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror in 2015, documenting thousands of racial terror lynchings in twelve states. Additional research documented lynchings in several states outside the Deep South. The publication is now in its third edition. EJI is "working to memorialize this history by visiting hundreds of lynching sites, collecting soil, and erecting public markers, in an effort to reshape the cultural landscape with monuments and memorials that more truthfully and accurately reflect our history."
Statesboro-Bulloch County is one of 200 communities in the United States working with EJI on the projects described above, along with other efforts including the following:
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Sponsoring local high school essay contests on race and justice and the legacies of racial terror;
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Hosting events and encouraging dialogue in civic, religious, and other groups on local histories of racial justice; and.
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Organizing group visits to the National Peace and Justice Memorial and The Legacy Museum in Montgomery.
Connect with the Work
Statesboro-Bulloch Remembrance Project
51 East Main Street
Statesboro, Georgia 30458
Email: info@bullocheji.org