Young, Gifted, and black
Equal Justice Initiative Pilgrimage 2024
Wake County Community Remembrance Project sent its fourth delegation to Montgomery, Alabama on December 5-6th, 2024. The visit included the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the new Freedom Monument Sculpture Park. (For more information about the Equal Justice Initiative, click just on the blank space here: here.) The group included college students, teachers, a full-time mom, an event planner, a small business owner, non-profit leaders, a chaplain to prisoners, an administrator for a synagogue, and a retiree.
Hallie Brew and Judith VanBoven
Hallie Brew and Judith VanBoven (JuJu) participated in the pilgrimage. Ms. VanBoven is a recent college graduate, and Ms. Brew is a senior. They first started to research George Taylor’s story (the man subjected in 1918 to the only documented lynching in Wake County) in Matt Scialdone’s African American Studies class at Middle Creek High School. On this Martin Luther King Day their reflections are below.
Hallie Brew’s Reflection:
When I started work relating to the Equal Justice Initiative as a freshman in high school, I had never been to the Legacy Museum. It felt like fate that I was able to go on this specific pilgrimage, as it was in between my college final exams. One of the finals was for my Descendants Project course which focused on finding the descendants of individuals lynched in Warren County. The research started with just a census record and newspaper clippings discussing William Watkins’s height, weight, skin color, and age, a description which seemed to reduce him from his human complexity to mere data points. While Watkins is the man I am thinking of as I write, the man who started this work for me, the work that changed the course of my education and future, was named George Taylor. He remains the only EJI-recognized victim of lynching in my home of Wake County, NC. Being Black in a Southern state means questioning whether my ancestors post-slavery faced the same fate as men like Taylor and Watkins. The pilgrimage was a steppingstone to acknowledging how racism in America has impacted my life through the preceding generations.
I was cautioned before the pilgrimage to Alabama that elements of the museum would be difficult to encounter and process. This is a caution that I often face as an American Studies major at UNC concentrating on racial violence in the South. While in some ways the museum was what I expected, the reality of it took my breath away. The information presented was clear and concise while also respectful and heartbreaking. I found the experience to be restorative, and it brought to life a history that many people choose to forget. While some want to forget, the impact history has on us today is impossible to ignore and is essential to confront. I was especially moved by several elements. Early in the tour of the museum, visitors are guided through a hallway that mimics the holding cells where enslaved people would be held after they were taken from their home countries prior to being auctioned. As the visitor makes the choice to step forward, blurry images become clear projections of men and women pleading for their freedom, asking questions, and looking for loved ones. In the last cell, a little girl no older than seven is captive, alone, and scared. She asks for her mom, and the desperation in her voice paired with our knowledge of the fate she would succumb to is truly heartbreaking.
Another striking section displays columns of newspaper ads selling enslaved people. While I’ve learned extensively about the sexual violence inflicted on Black women, I often think of slavery as impacting predominantly men due to the harsh labor conditions. Life-sized figures of women–chained, pregnant, unclothed, and often holding the hands of their children–powerfully reminded me of how slavery perpetuated itself. The commodification of human bodies, even unborn children, was shockingly laid bare in newspaper advertisements.
Towards the end of the displays when I viewed the jars of soil taken from actual lynching sites, it was also very emotional and brought me full circle. While the jars are rotated with different names and counties shown at any one time, both Wake County and Warren County’s jars were on the display wall that day. Doing genealogical and restorative work, I seldom see a physical outcome. Sometimes this is because the questions I am trying to answer have been lost to time and negligence, but other times it is because the truth has been buried for so long. Seeing the soil displayed from the two counties whose lynching histories I have intimately worked on was a moment of relief that concretely demonstrated that we are bringing stories back to life, even though the process is slow moving.
I am so incredibly thankful for the people who do this work, and experiences like the pilgrimage continue to fuel my passion for the work that can be emotionally draining.
Judith VanBoven’s Reflection:
Visiting the Equal Justice Initiative Museums during this recent pilgrimage to Alabama was a profoundly transformative experience. Walking through the Legacy Museum and encountering the exhibits for a second time left a lasting impression on me, especially as I reflected on my first visit at age 17, when I was a student at Middle Creek High School taking an African American Literature class with Mr. Scialdone. This time, I found myself more connected and in awe of the intricate stories of resilience and the profound truths shared about the legacy of racial injustice, slavery, and mass incarceration in America. Seeing the museum's expanded exhibits reminded me of how much work remains to be done in our collective pursuit of justice and equality. From participating in the Civil Rights walk at 6 AM, to seeing all 800 of the soil jars taken from actual lynching sites, to walking through the Freedom Monument Sculpture Park, the entire trip left me knowing that my passion for this work had been kindled even more strongly.
My journey with the George Taylor Project in high school laid the foundation for this passion, and my experiences since then and throughout my undergraduate studies have only deepened it. Being part of this project opened my eyes to the pervasive injustices embedded within the American system and inspired me to seek solutions rather than succumb to despair. That spark continues to grow, fueled by incredible teachers and mentors like Mr. Scialdone and Ms. Hardy, whose guidance and dedication have truly been transformative. Witnessing their impact on the community as well as within Wake County schools, combined with their unwavering belief in my potential, has pushed me to dream bigger and strive for actionable change. I see their lives as a testament to what leadership and advocacy looks like, and I am humbled to follow in their footsteps, hoping to make my own contributions as I go further in my education and career.
As I prepare to pursue a graduate degree in political science, my aspirations have taken on a new perspective, and I have set many goals for myself. I aim to immerse myself in understanding public policy and the intricate workings of the U.S. government, with a focus on crafting legislation that is equitable and rooted in justice. The stories of those who languish on death row, wronged by a system that too often prioritizes punishment over fairness, and retribution over rehabilitation, are what drives me to do this work. I want to be a part of rewriting these narratives—not just in books and museums but in laws and institutions—so that future generations might walk in a country shaped by fairness and equity. Thanks to the work I’ve been engaged in since high school, the unwavering support and encouragement of my mentors and teachers, and the transformative experience of participating in the Montgomery EJI Pilgrimages, I am confident and reassured that this journey, though challenging, is truly worthwhile as I continue to build a bridge between what is and what can be.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— On Saturday, March 1, 2025 from 8 AM-5 PM, please join the Legacies of Lynching: Inaugural Gathering at The Friday Conference Center, 100 Friday Center Dr, Chapel Hill, NC 27517. A registration link for the event will be posted on the WCCRC website (waketruth.org) as soon as it is available. ———————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Hallie Brew is an Honors Carolina student in the UNC Scholars Program and is pursuing a BA in American Studies as well as a BA in English with a concentration in Social Justice and Literature. She is passionate about researching North Carolina’s “Hidden History” and how our institutions have historically interacted with marginalized communities. This interest stemmed from her work with the Equal Justice Initiative’s Soil Remembrance Project, where, during high school, students collected dirt from Wake County communities to acknowledge and memorialize documented victims of racial violence.
She has continued this research by using UNC’s Special Collection archives and transcribing University Papers that note the use of enslaved labor to establish the University. These primary sources can help illustrate how the history of the South has a lasting impact on key elements of present-day communities, policy, and education. As a student and in the future, she hopes to catalyze change in her community, starting with education focused on this reframing of historical narratives.
Judith VanBoven, born in Ghana, West Africa, and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina, is a dedicated advocate for social justice and community empowerment. A proud alumna of Middle Creek High School, she collaborated with the Equal Justice Initiative on the Soil Remembrance Project and conducted research on the George Taylor lynching case. She recently graduated from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte with a double major, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Criminal Justice and a Bachelor of Science in Psychology. During her undergraduate years, Judith served as Senior Class President of her university and led diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, amplifying her peers' voices on campus.
Since graduating, Judith has pursued her passions through scholarship pageants, recently earning 2nd runner-up in a local Miss America Organization pageant. She also expresses her creativity by creating content as a member of the social media team for her Raleigh-based run club. As she continues to deepen her political knowledge, Judith plans to attend graduate school to earn a master's degree in political science and legislative affairs. Her ultimate goal is to become a congresswoman, working to enact equitable policies to correct mass incarceration and wrongful convictions, reform the justice system, and address systemic issues affecting marginalized communities.