Without Sanctuary

This morn­ing I was priv­i­leged enough to be given the oppor­tu­nity to take a pre­view tour of the With­out Sanc­tu­ary exhibit at the National Under­ground Rail­road Free­dom Cen­ter in Cincin­nati, Ohio.  I was part of a group of about 10 peo­ple granted the oppor­tu­nity to walk through the exhibit, share my feed­back, and now tell oth­ers my thoughts.

With­out Sanc­tu­ary is a dis­play of pho­tographs, news­pa­per arti­cles, and var­i­ous cul­tural arti­facts that depict the more than 4,000 lynch­ings that took place in The United States of Amer­ica between 1882 and 1968.  I never real­ized how wide­spread and com­mon this bar­baric prac­tice was in the United States.  There were more than 26 lynch­ings in Ohio alone.  One took place in my child­hood home of Spring­field, Ohio at the inter­sec­tion of Main Street and Foun­tain Avenue.  I know this inter­sec­tion well.  It is in the heart of the city, which at that time would have been bustling with peo­ple.  I was able to read an account of the event, pic­ture where it took place, and visu­al­ize the hor­ror that must have sur­rounded that tragic day in the early 1900’s.

In fact, many of these lynch­ings were quasi-social events, put on in plain view of the pub­lic.  I had always assumed that most of these events took place under the cover of dark­ness, far from the view of soci­ety.  Photo after pho­tos showed peo­ple smil­ing and mug­ging for the cam­era as puz­zled chil­dren looked on at the vic­tims who had been bru­tally put to death.  These were com­mon peo­ple, actively and pas­sively engag­ing in atroc­i­ties against human­ity — very dis­turb­ing.  Many of the pho­tographs had actu­ally been made into post­cards by atten­dees of the lynch­ings, who then sent them to fel­low fam­ily mem­bers to tell them about the event.  To think that mod­ern man is capa­ble of such cal­lous acts of evil is fright­en­ing, con­fus­ing, sick­en­ing and sad.

With­out Sanc­tu­ary also fea­tures a reflec­tion room, where you can stop and write down your thoughts about the exhibit in a pub­lic jour­nal.  You can also draw on a pub­lic white­board or record and share a video tes­ti­mo­nial.  After see­ing some­thing so pow­er­ful and dis­turb­ing, it was good to have a few moments to gather my thoughts, reflect on the mean­ing of this, and move for­ward back into the “real world.”

My take away can be summed up with one of the sig­na­ture quotes for the event.  It is as follows:

“We must remem­ber, because if the world for­gets evil, evil is reborn.”  - W.E.B. DuBois

The exhibit was edu­ca­tional, painful, and pow­er­ful.  While this is not some­thing that peo­ple want to see, I believe it is some­thing peo­ple need to see.  We are a nation prepar­ing to cel­e­brate the one year anniver­sary of our first African Amer­i­can Pres­i­dent.  It is easy to assume that with this mile­stone, the demons of our past have been put to rest for­ever.  While it is true that we have made sig­nif­i­cant progress as a nation, we must remem­ber that we are not so far removed from our  these hor­rific days in our his­tory.  As we move for­ward, we must not for­get our past, but rather learn from it.  When we see injus­tice, we must have the courage to inter­vene.  When the very fab­ric of human­ity is being ripped apart before blindly star­ing eyes, some­one must have the courage to cast a light upo

n the dark­ness.  With­out Sanc­tu­ary puts a bright and shin­ing spot­light on the very face of evil.  Stare into that face.  It is shown in pic­ture after pic­ture.  It is a face very sim­i­lar to your own.  Under­stand what the face of evil looks like, and let it not resem­ble you or me.  More impor­tantly let it never man­i­fest itself on the faces of our children.

I hope that you will take the time to see the exhibit.  My fee­ble descrip­tion in this post does not do it jus­tice, but I hope it con­vinces you to see it for your­self.  I extend my thanks to Pete Black­shaw, Kevin Dugan, and Paul Bernish who were kind enough to invite me to check it out.  Thank you.