[Congressional Record Volume 167, Number 130 (Monday, July 26, 2021)]
[Senate]
[Page S5067]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




        EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE'S COMMUNITY REMEMBRANCE PROJECT

  Ms. BALDWIN. Mr. President, today I rise to recognize the 
installation of a historical marker in the Good Hope Missionary Baptist 
Church yard on August 1, 2021, that will memorialize the life and death 
of three citizens who were lynched in 1908. This month, my constituent, 
Ms. Joyce Salter Johnson, will travel with friends and family from 
Wisconsin to Mississippi to honor her relative Frank Johnson, as one of 
those three men who were violently murdered in Hickory, MS.
  This historical marker is part of the important work being done by 
the Equal Justice Initiative in honoring and memorializing lives lost 
to racial violence in this country through its Community Remembrance 
Project. With its mission to end mass incarceration and excessive 
punishment in the United States, challenge racial and economic 
injustice, and protect basic human rights for the most vulnerable, the 
Equal Justice Initiative has been working to expose the truth, advocate 
for change, and create hope for historically marginalized communities. 
Lawyer and author Bryan Stevenson founded Equal Justice Initiative in 
1989, and since then, it has grown to an organization of robust 
projects, hands-on education, and publically accessible museums and 
memorials. In April of 2018, following in the footsteps of the late Dr. 
James Cameron of Milwaukee's Black Holocaust Museum in my home State of 
Wisconsin, the Equal Justice Initiative--EJI--opened America's first 
national memorial dedicated to victims of racial terror lynching and a 
new museum dedicated to slavery and its legacy was opened in 
Montgomery, AL.
  EJI's Community Remembrance Project partners with community 
coalitions to do extensive research of documented victims of racial 
violence. EJI fosters critical conversations about our history and race 
and justice today. The Community Remembrance Project memorializes 
documented victims of racial violence and its Community Soil Collection 
Project gathers soil at lynching sites for display in powerful exhibits 
honoring these victims. Narrative historical markers are erected in 
public locations where violence took place.
  My constituent, Wisconsin resident Joyce Salter Johnson, is a 
historian whose third book provides a well-researched history of the 
Freedmen Settlement of Good Hope, MS, where she lived until the age of 
10. Thus, prior to EJI's documentation, she knew the terrible sequence 
of events that led to the October 10, 1908, lynching of her relative, 
Mr. Frank Johnson, and the two others. Given her knowledge, research 
skills, and inclinations, she was well-suited to take leadership among 
the coalition members working on the Community Remembrance Project for 
these men, and for that, I am thankful.
  I commend the work of the Equal Justice Initiative and all who help 
further the Community Remembrance Project's mission of confronting the 
legacy of slavery, lynching, and segregation and charting a better 
future. And I extend my solidarity to Ms. Johnson and her family and 
friends on their personal journey of remembrance and memorial.

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