{"id":34,"date":"2025-11-03T19:45:43","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T19:45:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/?page_id=34"},"modified":"2025-11-05T21:52:55","modified_gmt":"2025-11-05T21:52:55","slug":"about-us","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/?page_id=34","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Inspired by the work of Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Equal Justice Initiative<\/a> in Montgomery, the Alabama Memory Project is an ongoing attempt to recapture the lives of the lynching victims and attempted lynching victims in Alabama before the worst day of their lives. We consider attempted lynchings along with documented lynchings in an effort to capture the breadth of lynch violence and its impact on survivors and their communities.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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The project began in spring 2017. From the beginning, we worked with descendant communities to write about the victims and the violence. They told us to focus on more than the murder or attempted murder and remember the victims as men, women, and children who worked, loved, and lived fully as human beings.  The goal was not to avoid telling about the crimes\u2013\u201cthe truth is brutal,\u201d as the cousin of one victim told us\u2013but to ensure the memory was honest and complete. This focus prompted us to avoid publishing pictures of lynched bodies, believing they were unnecessary to capture the story of victims\u2019 lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our focus on student education and initiative has been constant. As of 2025, over 200 students have worked on the project, many for multiple years, and MA and Ph.D students have made the history of racial violence in the state their research concentration. The class served as the inspiration for History of Us, the first Black history class taught daily in public school in Alabama, and more recently for civil rights curricula for middle schools. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are constantly revising our research to reflect new stories from descendant families, new databases, and new technologies to record, preserve, and present the information. We began with 364 reported lynchings in the state. Since 2017, we have identified over 400 more cases of lynching in Alabama. Focusing on Black women as victims, we had an initial total of 17 cases and currently have more than 60. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We update the initial dataset annually with lynchings and attempted lynchings newly uncovered by our project. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Glossary<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Ethics<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Methods<\/div><\/a><\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Credits<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Founder<\/strong>: John Giggie<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Project Manager<\/strong>: Isabella Garrison<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Archivists and Librarians<\/strong>: Alex Boucher, Kate Metheny, Brittany Waltemate, Faith Walker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Digital Humanities Consultants<\/strong>: Sara Whitver, Nick Daria<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alabama Memory Community Advisors<\/strong>: Billie Rawls, Pat Williams, Danny Steele, Rev. Dr. Tyshawn Gardner, Callie Rhodes Outlaw<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alabama Memory Fellows<\/strong>: Gavin Jones, Kendall Comish, Jana Venable, Makayla Brewer, Brooklyn Colemen, Delaney Maze<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Alabama Memory Web Designers<\/strong>: Andrew Morgan, Joe Druhan, Austin Johnson, Mariska Perdick<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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This project has been generously supported by the University of Alabama, in particular the Barefield College of Arts and Sciences, the Department of History, and the Alabama Digital Humanities Center and Library System.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspired by the work of Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, the Alabama Memory Project is an ongoing attempt to recapture the lives of the lynching victims and attempted lynching victims in Alabama before the worst day of their lives. We consider attempted lynchings along with documented […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-34","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":false,"thumbnail":false,"medium":false,"medium_large":false,"large":false,"1536x1536":false,"2048x2048":false},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"John Giggie","author_link":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/?author=2"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Inspired by the work of Ida B. Wells, W. E. B. Du Bois, and the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, the Alabama Memory Project is an ongoing attempt to recapture the lives of the lynching victims and attempted lynching victims in Alabama before the worst day of their lives. We consider attempted lynchings along with documented…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/34\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adhc1.ua.edu\/alabama_memory\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}