Bearing Witness in Montgomery – A reflection on history, narrative, and our responsibility today

Last week I traveled with a group of civic and community leaders from Jacksonville to Montgomery, Alabama to visit the legacy sites created by the Equal Justice Initiative founded by Bryan Stevenson. Over two days we visited all four EJI sites—spaces designed to tell the story of how racial injustice in America has evolved from slavery to segregation to mass incarceration. We also had the privilege of sharing dinner and conversation with Bryan Stevenson himself. 

I’ve studied much of this history before. But experiencing it in this way — through stories, testimony, and reflection — felt different. 

The trip was thoughtfully curated by Velma Montero-Tribble with the help of Angela Getter and Dr. Audrieanna Burgin. For many years, 904ward has helped organize these journeys, bringing leaders from Jacksonville to Montgomery to engage more deeply with this history. Each year, soil collected from sites of racial terror lynchings in Duval County is delivered to the museum as part of the memorial effort. This year our group brought soil in memory of the Lang family. 

Delivering the soil was a sobering moment. It was a reminder that this history isn’t distant or abstract, it is connected to our own community. 

What stayed with me most from the experience, though, was not just the history. It was the humanity. 

One of the most powerful elements of the Legacy Museum is the use of storytelling. The art, the interactive exhibits, and the first-person voices create something different than a traditional museum experience. Again and again, you hear people tell their own stories— people who were enslaved, families terrorized by racial violence, and individuals who have endured wrongful convictions and unjust incarceration. It is impossible to keep history at arm’s length; you begin to feel the human lives underneath the information. 

One exhibit in particular stayed with me. Through holographic interviews, formerly incarcerated individuals share their experiences with unjust sentencing, wrongful convictions, and violence within the prison system. One man described spending decades in prison for a crime he did not commit. A woman spoke about being assaulted by a corrections officer and forced to give up her baby after giving birth while incarcerated. 

Hearing their stories reminds you that systems we often discuss in abstract terms were experienced by real people with real lives. You are confronted with the human cost. 

After a full day of sight-seeing the group had dinner with Bryan Stevenson and the extraordinary scholar and educator, Jacksonville’s own, Dr. Johnnetta B. Cole. As we reflected on what we had seen that day, Stevenson spoke about something that has stayed with me ever since: the power of narrative. 

He talked about how the narratives that fuel injustice adapt over time. The story that once justified slavery did not simply disappear. It evolved. Over generations, fear-based narratives about the “other” have been repackaged and used to justify new forms of exclusion and inequality. 

This pattern has not only affected Black Americans. Similar narratives have been used throughout our history to target many communities — including Native people, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and LGBTQ individuals. 

The lesson is both sobering and important: when harmful narratives go unexamined, they rarely disappear. They change shape. 

Stevenson also spoke about something many of us recognize today — that reckoning with injustice is uncomfortable. In fact, he argues that discomfort is often the first step toward truth. When societies avoid that discomfort, it becomes easier to normalize or ignore the harm experienced by others. 

That conversation made me reflect on the moment we are living in right now. 

Many of us sense that narratives of fear and division are growing louder—in our politics, in our media, and sometimes even in our everyday conversations. These narratives can spread quickly, amplified by technology and constant streams of information. Many people feel overwhelmed by the constant flow of information and change and they’re uncertain about how to respond. 

It can be tempting to disengage. 

But one of the lessons I carried home from Montgomery is that silence and isolation allow dehumanizing narratives to grow stronger. 

Our response must be something different. 

It must be curiosity instead of assumption.
Courage instead of avoidance.
Connection instead of isolation. 

This is where the work of OneJax becomes especially important. 

Every generation faces stories that portray some people as threats rather than neighbors. Those stories make it easier for communities to tolerate injustice or look the other way. 

At OneJax, we believe proximity to one another is one of the most powerful ways to challenge harmful narratives. For more than fifty years, we have been creating spaces where people from different faiths, cultures, and backgrounds can come together — to listen, to learn, and to build relationships across difference. These moments of proximity are powerful. When we hear one another’s stories and share experiences together, it becomes harder to accept narratives that portray our neighbors as strangers or threats. 

We may not be able to control the larger forces shaping our national conversations. But we can choose how we show up in our own communities. 

We can ask questions.
We can sit with discomfort.
We can build relationships across difference.
And when we encounter injustice — whether in public life or within our own circles — we can refuse to normalize it. 

The work of building a more just and connected community is not easy. But it begins with something simple and deeply human: seeing one another clearly and recognizing our shared humanity. 

The legacy sites in Montgomery do not offer easy answers. Instead, they invite us to bear witness to the past so that we might live more responsibly in the present. 

For me, the experience reinforced something I believe deeply: the stories we tell about one another shape the communities we create. 

And when we choose to listen more deeply, understand more honestly, and connect more intentionally, we can break the cycle of fear and create space for belonging for everyone.