Lifestyle
At the Legacy Museum, facing America’s racist past is a path, not a punishment
Bryan Stevenson stands beside jars that hold dirt collected from sites where Black people were lynched. He is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative and the author of Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption.
Equal Justice Initiative
hide caption
toggle caption
Equal Justice Initiative
In his second term, President Trump has ordered the removal of monuments, plaques and exhibitions related to slavery, and the history of racial injustice in the U.S. Meanwhile, human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson has been working to ensure evidence of America’s painful past is not erased.
Stevenson’s nonprofit, the Equal Justice Initiative, opened the Legacy Museum in Montgomery, Ala., in 2018, to chronicle slavery and racism in America. A new exhibit, which is both located in and called Montgomery Square, begins in 1955 with the boycott of Montgomery’s segregated buses and ends 10 years later with the marches from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights.
Stevenson describes Montgomery’s buses as “places of real peril” during Jim Crow. Black people were prohibited from sitting in the first 10 seats of the bus, which were reserved for white riders only. Additionally, Black people had to pay in the front of the bus, then go to the rear to board — hoping that the bus driver didn’t take off without them. In 1950, a Black World War II veteran named Hilliard Brooks was shot and killed by police after he argued with the driver as he attempted to board a bus.
“Black people couldn’t avoid [the buses] because they had to get to work; they had to go to the homes where they served as maids and cooks and domestic workers,” Stevenson says. “And it did make the bus this very unique space for how racial apartheid, how segregation and Jim Crow manifested in the lives of virtually every Black person in the community.”
Stevenson says he’s not trying to “punish America” by talking about slavery and lynching. Rather, he says, confronting oppression is a path toward liberation.
“There is an America that is more free — where there’s more equality, where there is more justice, where there less bigotry — and I think it’s waiting for us,” he says. “But I don’t think we can … create that America while we remain burdened by this history that too many refuse to talk about, too many refused to acknowledge.”
Stevenson is the founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, which represents children and adults illegally convicted or unfairly sentenced. His 2014 memoir, Just Mercy, was adapted into a film starring Oscar-winning actor Michael B. Jordan.
Interview highlights
On meeting civil rights activists Rosa Parks and Johnnie Carr
After a couple of hours, Mrs. Parks turned to me, and she said, “OK, Bryan, tell me what you’re trying to do.” And I told her about our work trying to represent people on death row. I said, “We’re trying to challenge wrongful convictions. We’re trying to challenge this legal system that treats you better if you’re rich and guilty than if you were poor and innocent. We’re trying to represent children. We’re trying to do something about bigotry and poverty and people who are mentally ill. We’re trying to change the way we operate these jails and prisons.”
I gave her my whole rap. And when I finished, she looked at me and she said, “Mm, mm, mm, that’s going to make you tired, tired, tired!” And that’s when Ms. Carr leaned forward and she put her finger in my face. She said, “That’s why you’ve got to be brave, brave, brave.” And Ms. Parks grabbed my hand and said, “Will you be brave?” And I said, “Yes, ma’am.”
A monument in Montgomery Square pays tribute to the Black women who led the Montgomery bus boycott.
Equal Justice Initiative
hide caption
toggle caption
Equal Justice Initiative
On the march from Selma to Montgomery
We’ve been doing this project where we interview people. … Amelia Boynton Robinson was almost killed by horses and police officers. Lynda Blackmon Lowery said she got hit and she passed out. And for 40 years, she assumed that she passed out because she hit her head on the ground. And then when they uncovered documentary footage, she realized that she passed out and she was in that condition because after she fell, she was beaten by state troopers over and over again on the head. But she insisted on getting out of the hospital and being ready for the next march.
I think it’s the courage, it’s commitment, it is the tenacity, the acculturation to do things that most people would never choose to do. We recently lost Dr. Bernard Lafayette, an extraordinary leader who was tasked with organizing much of what happened in Selma. He told me, he said, “Bryan, we were prepared to die.” … And I don’t think people appreciate the extraordinary courage it took. … People were beaten and battered. And I just think to confront that kind of threat, with no protection, without an army, with no weapons, takes an extraordinary courage that I feel like we have to access again if we really want to create a more just world, and I think that’s the discovery that I’m really inspired by.
On documenting nearly 6,500 lynchings that took place in the U.S. — 2,000 more than had previously been documented
The detailed work of going into these communities and uncovering archive references and newspaper references was something that no one had undertaken. And so we spent five years combing through these records. … We now have identified 6,500 lynchings of Black people in this country between 1865 and 1950. I do think it says something again about how we have failed to investigate this really important period of American history. …
We’ve got instances where a man was lynched because he didn’t call a police officer, “sir.” Somebody didn’t step off the sidewalk when white people walked by. A Black man went to the front door of a white person’s house, not the back door. So many people were lynched, because they passed a note. They were Black men passing notes to white women. … One Black woman in Kentucky was lynched because they couldn’t find her brother. So they used her as a proxy for this Black man who had been accused of something. And when you understand that this practice, this terror violence, was about tormenting and traumatizing and reinforcing this racial hierarchy, you begin to think of this differently.
“The monuments are at eye level, and then the ground shifts and they raise up, and you are standing underneath these six-foot, corten steel monuments that identify all of these people, and it unnerves a lot of people,” Stevenson says of the Legacy Museum’s memorial to lynching.
Equal Jutice Initiative
hide caption
toggle caption
Equal Jutice Initiative
On what truth and reconciliation looks like
The first thing is that for truth and justice, truth and reconciliation, truth and restoration, truth and repair, I think the first we have to acknowledge is that those things are sequential. You can’t get the beautiful “R” words, like redemption and reconciliation and restoration and repair, unless you first tell the truth. As a lawyer, I can tell you that you’ve got to have the truth of what happened at the crime scene and the state understands this. They want to put all of the evidence in, because that’s what’s going to allow the jury to make an informed decision about culpability. And we’ve never really done that. And so I think this process of truth-telling has to shape what we do.
In South Africa, after the collapse of apartheid, they committed space for the victims of apartheid to give voice to their harm. They even created space for the perpetrators to give a voice to the regret. You go to Germany, the villain of the 20th century, and you can’t go 200 meters without seeing markers and monuments and memorials dedicated to the harm of the Holocaust. They’ve made truth-telling a necessity. No student in German can graduate without demonstrating a detailed knowledge and understanding of the Holocaust. They require it. And the result of that is that there are no Adolf Hitler statues in Berlin. There are no monuments or memorials to the Nazis. We’ve never done that in this country. In fact, we’ve done the opposite.
Monique Nazareth and Susan Nyakundi produced and edited this interview for broadcast. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Beth Novey adapted it for the web.
“She’s like a female Willy Wonka,” Sakief Baron, 36, said about Kendra Austin, 32, after she explained that her personal style had a playful and cartoonish spirit.
Dressed in loose, oversize layers in blue and neutral shades, the couple were walking on the Upper East Side of Manhattan when I noticed them on a Saturday in April. There was a symmetry to their ensembles, so it wasn’t too surprising when she noted that he had influenced her fashion sense.
Before they met, she said, she was “less sure” about her wardrobe choices. “I also have lost 100 pounds in the time we’ve been together,” she added, which she said had helped her to recalibrate her relationship with clothes.
His style has been influenced by hip-hop culture, basketball players like Allen Iverson and his mother’s Finnish background. “I just take all these pieces and then it kind of comes together,” he said.
Both described themselves as multidisciplinary artists; he also has a job at a youth center, mentoring children. “I want to make sure that I look like someone they want to aspire to be every time they see me,” he said.
In my L.A. Buy Nothing group, I started noticing how some objects, given for free from neighbor to neighbor, carry emotional weight. An item was more than it appeared. It was a piece of personal history, perhaps one with generational memories.
From one person’s hands to another’s, objects find new life through the free gift economy on Facebook or the Buy Nothing app. Buy Nothing Project, a public benefit corporation, reports having 14 million members across more than 50 countries who give away 2.6 million items a month. There are more than 100 groups in Los Angeles alone.
Buy Nothing reduces waste by keeping items out of landfills. It also builds community. When our lives are increasingly online, Buy Nothing encourages us to get out of our cars and make connections with neighbors, even if the interaction is no more than a wave when picking something up left by a doorstep. Researchers have found that even small social interactions can foster a sense of belonging.
Still, Buy Nothing has its challenges. For years, some have complained that the groups shouldn’t be limited to neighborhoods, but rather have more open borders. Last year, many longtime members complained about the project enforcing its trademark, leading Facebook to shut down unregistered groups even if they were serving people under economic strain. Critics saw the tattling as a shift from mutual aid toward control and branding. For its part, Buy Nothing says its decisions are based on building community, trust and safety.
Despite those disagreements, Buy Nothing offers a platform for special connections. As much as there are jokes about people offering half-eaten cake, many have passed along treasured items. Buy Nothing items may feel too valuable for the trash or too personal for Goodwill. The interaction between giver and receiver becomes just as meaningful as the object itself.
I set out to document these quiet exchanges in my Buy Nothing group, drawn to the question of why people choose to pass their belongings from one neighbor to another.
Tiny builders, big exchange
Lidia Butcher gives a toolbox and worktable her two sons used to Chelsea Ward for her 17-month-old son.
“We’ve had the toolbox and worktable for the last 10 years, it’s been very special. When I told my youngest son we were going to give it away, he was a little sad. He said he was still playing with it, but then I explained that it’s been sitting untouched for a year and that if we gave it to someone else, maybe someone else would be happy about it. So he felt joy about giving it to another child who would want to play with it. I have this little emotional feeling letting it go, but at the same time, it’s a good feeling. Like a new beginning.”
— Lidia Butcher, 35, joined the group several years ago when someone told her a person in the group once asked for a cup of sugar.
“We’re getting a worktable. Benji is now old enough to be interested in playing with tools. I’m going to move my drafting table out of his room. His bedroom is my office. So that will go into storage or the Buy Nothing group and the worktable will go in its place. We live in an apartment, and as he’s growing, his needs change but our space doesn’t. Buy Nothing is really helpful to be able to cycle out of stuff.”
— Chelsea Ward, 38, has found the Buy Nothing group extremely helpful since becoming a mom.
Something borrowed
Abby Rodriguez lends Sophie Janinet a veil for her wedding.
“Sophie had asked for a wedding veil on our Buy Nothing group and I’m lending it to her because I wanted it to have a second life. I hate the idea that precious things just sit there and never get touched. My wedding day was one of the best days of my life. At one point the power went out and now we have this amazing picture with my husband and I and everyone using their phone to light up the dance floor.”
— Abby Rodriguez, 40, discovered Buy Nothing when she moved to her northeast L.A. neighborhood in 2020.
“I moved to Los Angeles from France four years ago. The day I joined Buy Nothing was the first time I felt connected to the community. It played a huge role in my adapting to life here. I’m receiving a veil because I want my wedding to look and feel like my values. I thrifted my dress, I chose a local seamstress to alter the dress but when I tried it on, I felt something was missing. I wanted a veil but I didn’t want to buy new because I didn’t want to add anything to the landfill. So I posted a request for the veil on Buy Nothing.”
— Sophie Janinet, 37, is recreating the low-waste, slower-paced values she once lived by in France through her local Buy Nothing community.
2
1. Abby Rodriguez, left, holds her wedding veil that she is lending Sophie Janinet, right, for her upcoming wedding. 2. Michele Sawers, left stands with Beth Penn, right, while giving her a decorative owl.
A pigeon-spooking owl gets a second life
Michele Sawers gives Beth Penn a decorative owl.
“Coming from a place of luck, now I have plenty to give. The owl has been with me for 26 years. I bought the owl soon after I bought this house. The owl was purchased because I had a pigeon problem, they would camp out under my eves and I would have bird poop everywhere. The owl must have worked because they’re gone and they haven’t come back.”
— Michele Sawers, 58, uses Buy Nothing regularly to connect with her community and support her low-consumption values.
“There are things I don’t want to own. So borrowing those things on Buy Nothing is really nice. There is a person who I borrowed their cooler twice and their ladder twice so I feel like they are my neighbor even though they are not [right next door]. We get these birds that poop on the deck and the recommendation online was to get a fake owl. When it was posted on Buy Nothing, I thought, ‘I have to have that owl!’ It’s going to have a good home with me on the deck with some cats, a dog and some kids.”
— Beth Penn, 47, once helped build her local Buy Nothing group and now experiences it from the other side, as a member.
Stuffed toys find a new purpose
Magaly Leyva, left, stands with Tatiana Lonny, right, with the stuffed toys and play balls she is gifting her.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
Magaly Leyva gives stuffed toys and plastic play balls to Tatiana Lonny.
“My mother-in-law gave the dolls and plastic play balls to my daughter, but she has so much. My daughter is not going to play with them with the same intent that another kid would, because she’s really little. I’d rather another kid use these things.”
— Magaly Leyva, 35, joined Buy Nothing nearly four years ago to find clothes for her nephew.
“I’m taking these new items to a township called Langa in South Africa. I know the kids there will be so happy. They have so little there. I’m doing this all by myself, I’m just collecting a GoFundMe for the suitcase fee at the airport.”
— Tatiana Lonny, 51, began using Buy Nothing in hopes of finding resources to support the animals she rescues.
A second helping
Laura Cherkas gives Aurora Sanchez a cast iron pan.
“Buy Nothing gives me the freedom to let go of things because I know that they will stay in the community and the neighborhood. I’m giving a couple of cast iron items that my husband and I got when we were on a cast iron kick, probably during COVID. We determined that we don’t actually use these particular pans and they were just making our drawers heavy. So we decided to let someone else get some use out of them.
“I hate throwing things away. I want to see things have another life. Sometimes I take things to a donation center, but I like the personal connection with Buy Nothing and that you know that there is someone who definitely wants your item.”
— Laura Cherkas, 40, has built connections with other moms through Buy Nothing and values it as a way to cycle toys in and out for her child.
Laura Cherkas, left, holds the pan she is gifting Aurora Sanchez, right, through Buy Nothing.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
“I wanted a cast iron pan because I cook a lot of grilled meat. I’m excited to try this style of cooking out and it will help me when I cook for only one or two people. I got lucky because I was chosen to receive it.”
— Aurora Sanchez, 54, has spent the past two years engaging with Buy Nothing, finding in it a sense of neighborly support that makes her feel valued while strengthening her connection to the community.
Next player up
Joe Zeni, 70, is using his local Buy Nothing group on Facebook to give away a basketball hoop he used with his son when he was little.
(Dania Maxwell/For The Times)
Joe Zeni first offered a basketball hoop on Buy Nothing in 2023, where it remains unclaimed.
“I’m giving away a Huffy basketball freestanding hoop because it’s just taking up space. We used to play horse and shoot baskets together. My son is now 35, he doesn’t live here anymore.”
— Joe Zeni, 70, uses Buy Nothing often to give items away, believing many of the things he no longer needs still have purpose.
In the year since his death, there has been no hard pivot at Armani. The shadow of the founder has stayed in place over the Milan HQ, where the brand seems happy to leave it. Armani is not just plumbing the past for continued inspiration, it’s reselling it.
Today, Giorgio Armani is announcing Archivio, a grouping of 13 men’s and women’s looks, plucked from the brand’s back catalog and remade for today. (And, yes, at today’s prices.) There’s a jacket in pinstriped alpaca of 1979 vintage; a buttery one-and-a-half breasted jacket with a maitre d’s flair that first appeared in 1987; and an unstructured silk-linen suit that will activate ’90s flashbacks for die-hard Armani clients and those who want to capture that era’s nostalgia. The advertising campaign was shot and styled by Eli Russell Linnetz, who has his own label, ERL, but always seems to be the first call brands make when they want sultry photos with the aura of Details magazine circa 1995. (He did a similar thing for Guess recently.)
Linnetz’s images are a reminder of how Armani’s work still reverberates decades later.
Archivio is also a canny recognition of what shoppers crave now. On the resale market, Armani wares are as coveted as can be. Every week it seems as if I get an email from Ndwc0, a British vintage store, announcing a new drop of meaty-shouldered ’90s Armani power suits. They sell for less than $500. At Sorbara’s in Brooklyn, you can buy a tan Giorgio Armani vest for $225.
That vintage-mad audience is in Armani’s sights: To introduce the collection, it’s staging an installation, opening today, at Giorgio Armani’s Milan boutique. It will feature the hosts of “Throwing Fits,” a New York-based podcast whose hosts wear vintage Armani button-ups and shout out stores like Sorbara’s.
It’s prudent, if a bit disconnected. Part of the charm of old Armani is that it can be found on the cheap. I’m wearing a pair of vintage Giorgio Armani corduroys as I write this. I bought them for $76 on eBay. Archivio is reverent, but its prices, which range from $1,025 to $12,000, may scare off shoppers willing to do the searching themselves.
If you ask me, the next frontier of this archive fixation is that a brand — and a big one — will release a mountain of genuine vintage pieces. J. Crew and Banana Republic have tried this at a small scale, but a luxury house like Armani hasn’t gone there. Yet. Eventually, Armani (or a brand like it) is going to grab hold of the market that exists around its brand, but through which it gets no cut.
Other things worth knowing about:
-
North Dakota2 minutes agoValue of North Dakota oil rises as Iran war upends markets – KVRR Local News
-
Ohio8 minutes agoNWSL announces expansion to Columbus, Ohio
-
Oklahoma14 minutes ago
Woman rescued from Oklahoma City house fire; no injuries reported
-
Oregon20 minutes agoWine Enthusiast names 2 Oregon sparkling wines among best
-
Pennsylvania26 minutes agoDavid A. Mansel, West Middlesex, PA
-
Rhode Island32 minutes agoRhode Island shifts its primary to Wednesday, Sept. 9, easing a Labor Day poll setup crunch
-
South-Carolina38 minutes agoFormer SC Lt. Gov. André Bauer nominated to be next US Ambassador to Belize
-
South Dakota44 minutes agoSouth Dakota extends AD Jon Schemmel through 2030-31 academic year