Nina's campaign for Dear Evanston
Tax deductible
Dear Evanston is planning an “Uncomfortable Journey” to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama from Friday, September 13 to Sunday, September 15 to visit the Equal Justice Initiative ’s Legacy Museum and Peace and Justice Memorial.
The museum uses interactive media, sculpture, videography and exhibits to immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of the domestic slave trade, racial terrorism, the Jim Crow South, and the world’s largest prison system.
More than 4,400 African American men, women, and children were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. Millions more fled the South as refugees from racial terrorism, profoundly impacting the entire nation.
Until now, there has been no national memorial acknowledging the victims of racial terror lynchings. On a six-acre site atop a rise overlooking Montgomery, the national lynching memorial is a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terror in America and its legacy.
We’re billing this as an “Uncomfortable Journey,” based on Bryan Stevenson ’s quote:
“There is no path to justice that is only comfortable and convenient. We will not create justice until we’re willing to sometimes position ourselves in uncomfortable places and be a witness.”
As you may know, Bryan Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and of the Museum and Memorial, and author of the book, Just Mercy.
This journey will also be uncomfortable because we’ll experience a long round-trip bus ride—a real journey, a passage—and not the most luxurious way to travel.
We chose to travel by bus to allow the trip to be accessible to Evanstonians of all income levels, and because it’s a symbolic nod to Rosa Parks and to the Freedom Riders, the civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern US in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.
Our goal is to fill two buses (that’s 110 Evanstonians) for this pilot communal journey, and to enable anyone who lives and works in Evanston, regardless of their ability to pay, to join us on the journey.
Together, we will confront our past, have difficult but necessary conversations, and commit to working toward racial equity in our own community.
The journey costs $300, including the bus, hotel stay, meals, and tickets to the museum and memorial.
Your generous donation in any amount will help ensure that any Evanstonian who wants to join us will be able to do so.
At least one-third of our participants to date have requested scholarships, either full or partial so we have increased our initial GoFundMe goal to $4,000, which will cover the full cost of the trip for 13 participants, and is just a part of our overall fundraising effort.
Thank you so much for your contribution!
For more information, visit dearevanston.org/de-goest-to-montgomery.
The museum uses interactive media, sculpture, videography and exhibits to immerse visitors in the sights and sounds of the domestic slave trade, racial terrorism, the Jim Crow South, and the world’s largest prison system.
More than 4,400 African American men, women, and children were hanged, burned alive, shot, drowned, and beaten to death by white mobs between 1877 and 1950. Millions more fled the South as refugees from racial terrorism, profoundly impacting the entire nation.
Until now, there has been no national memorial acknowledging the victims of racial terror lynchings. On a six-acre site atop a rise overlooking Montgomery, the national lynching memorial is a sacred space for truth-telling and reflection about racial terror in America and its legacy.
We’re billing this as an “Uncomfortable Journey,” based on Bryan Stevenson ’s quote:
“There is no path to justice that is only comfortable and convenient. We will not create justice until we’re willing to sometimes position ourselves in uncomfortable places and be a witness.”
As you may know, Bryan Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and of the Museum and Memorial, and author of the book, Just Mercy.
This journey will also be uncomfortable because we’ll experience a long round-trip bus ride—a real journey, a passage—and not the most luxurious way to travel.
We chose to travel by bus to allow the trip to be accessible to Evanstonians of all income levels, and because it’s a symbolic nod to Rosa Parks and to the Freedom Riders, the civil rights activists who rode interstate buses into the segregated southern US in 1961 and subsequent years to challenge the non-enforcement of the United States Supreme Court decisions Morgan v. Virginia (1946) and Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which ruled that segregated public buses were unconstitutional.
Our goal is to fill two buses (that’s 110 Evanstonians) for this pilot communal journey, and to enable anyone who lives and works in Evanston, regardless of their ability to pay, to join us on the journey.
Together, we will confront our past, have difficult but necessary conversations, and commit to working toward racial equity in our own community.
The journey costs $300, including the bus, hotel stay, meals, and tickets to the museum and memorial.
Your generous donation in any amount will help ensure that any Evanstonian who wants to join us will be able to do so.
At least one-third of our participants to date have requested scholarships, either full or partial so we have increased our initial GoFundMe goal to $4,000, which will cover the full cost of the trip for 13 participants, and is just a part of our overall fundraising effort.
Thank you so much for your contribution!
For more information, visit dearevanston.org/de-goest-to-montgomery.
Organizer
Nina Kavin
Organizer
Evanston, IL
Dear Evanston
Registered nonprofit
Donations are typically 100% tax deductible in the US.
