Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America

EJI, so known as Equal Justice Initiative, was born out of a commitment to end mass incarceration and excessive punishment in the United States. While I’ve previously talked about EJI’s Lynching in America, an interactive project mapping racial terror lynchings throughout the United States, I wanted to touch on the entire multimedia aspect the website offers.

Alongside the interactive racial violence map, which on the above photo is labeled “Explore,” the website also houses other multimedia projects.

IDV

Under the “Explore” tab is home to an interactive map of the Great Migration, the movement of over six million African Americans over a 60-year time period. The below photo shows the dispersion of African Americans in the each state in 1910.

Seen below is the same map set for 1970. The red line [under “The Great Migration”] is a sliding scale, showing a different map each decade between 1910–1970.

Seen in the “Listen” section of the website are audio stories and audio slideshows. When clicked, a slideshow of different audio stories and audio slideshows appear.

Audio Slideshows and Audio Stories

The quote, “It could have easily been my grandfather hanging on that same tree,” refers to the above story about the narrator’s grandfather, who was force to flee Mississippi with the narrator’s mother due to violence. A friend of the grandfather, John Hartfield, decided to turn back, eventually being accused of assaulting a white women. This audio slideshow featured a photo of the lynching that was advertised in the newspaper.

Video Story

“Uprooted,” the video story, is about a lady who couldn’t trace his ancestry past her great-grandfather, Thomas Miles Sr., who was lynched for allegedly passing a note to a white woman. As the first person in the family to travel back to the South in 100 years, she wanted to find out the truth.

Written Stories

“The Report” is an in-depth report of “Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror.”