The current environment in America has been shaped significantly by memories and freedom that has enabled people to experience what their kindred went through in the past. The memory of the experiences erewhile depicts the treatment that the African Americans and how it was concealed. The memory about the experiences that African Americans were subjected to has also been distorted or obscured to ensure that the black American experiences are forgotten or not well understood. One of the ways in which memories have been preserved is through the Confederates memorials. The Confederates memorials preserve an essential history and have been preserved mainly in the South to show experiences of blacks when the Southerners were fighting to hold out against political rights for African Americans. The blacks preserved the monuments to mark significant events that shaped the history of black Americans.
Lynching is one of the practices that was used not only to terrorize blacks but also to control them. The practice was rampant and formed a critical part of history to the subversion of a judiciary process, which is legal. Southerners adopted the practice of lynching as a method of coaxing the blacks into submission and ejecting them from the States and counties where the whites did not want them. The Southerners and few Northerners were eager to adopt lynching as a method of racial and social control of the blacks residing in some white states (Community Remembrance Project). While many states have made efforts to commemorate confederacy to enhance the promotion of the cultural identity, the blacks have also orchestrated their efforts to preserve the history of lynching to showcase how it influenced the current distribution of blacks in the US.
Definition of freedom
Freedom entails the right to think, move, and live freely. In the US, different ethnic communities and races view freedom from different perspectives. Blacks view freedom as the right to reside in any neighborhood of choice, right to own property, as well as the power to socially network with all people regardless of their ethnicity or race. Conversely, white people interpret freedom as the right to reside in a neighborhood that is dominated by white culture. The definitions of freedom for different ethnic and racial identities vary depending on the neighborhood that people are living in. Most of the Northern states have adopted liberal perspectives hence more accommodative to everyone regardless of racial or ethnic identity. On the contrary, the Southern states promote white cultural unity and not accommodative to blacks.
Justice is an integral component in the definition of freedom. The blacks have always desired a social and judicial environment where there is no discrimination along ethnic and racial lines. The lynching victims belonged to communities and families that witnessed the ordeals. However, due to the subversion of the prevailing legal, judicial process, the perpetrators of the lynching were never incarcerated in the 1950s. In the present times, the individuals who commit crimes against the blacks, as exemplified in the case of Trevor Martin that took place three years ago, are often exonerated (“Community Remembrance Project”). On the contrary, the blacks, due to their lack of freedom, are often incarcerated even for crimes they did not commit.
Monuments and memories and the past
Monuments have played a critical role in depicting past experiences and educing a sense of belonging and pride. The southerners have orchestrated efforts to preserve the monuments of some of the confederate army generals and as well as confederate flags that are being raised to-date alongside the US flag. The rationale behind the preservation of the flags in neighborhoods and homesteads is to commemorate the confederacy and the desire to maintain white cultural unity. The preservation of the symbols of slavery by the Southerners is an indictment to the government and the people preserving them. It is an indication that the communities whose relatives were subjected to slavery are not being honored.
The blacks have also created monuments as a sign of honor to the people that experienced the lynching by laying a wreath or placing soil in some selected spots. The practice is a representation of the life that people experienced and the torture that they endured for their future generation to enjoy the liberties and freedoms being currently exploited (Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror). The blacks have also kept memory about the spots where most of the atrocities took place to ensure that the experiences are not forgotten and hence act as a reminder on how governments have treated blacks down memory lane.
The memories have also been adopted as a fundamental part of structuring the African American perception. There has been an intergenerational transmission of memories to motivate future generations to stand and fight for their rights and those of their relatives. The preservation of the memories is, therefore, a way of ensuring that the victims of lynching in society are remembered in the form of memories as exemplified in the case of Thomas Miller Sr. and Andrew Crawford. Remembering the victims of historical injustices is a way of shaping how they are viewed and interpreted in the current social structure.