Vatican admits the change of Sabbath was their act not the Bible.

 

Rome’s biggest challenge

“Prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the Catholic Church alone. The Catholic Church says, by my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church” (Thomas Enright, CSSR, President, Redemptorist College [Roman Catholic], Kansas City, MO, Feb. 18, 1884).

Here can be no doubt that Christ, His disciples, and the first-century Christians kept Saturday, the seventh-day Sabbath. Yet, today, most of the Christian professing world keeps Sunday, the first day of the week, calling it the Sabbath. Who made this change, and how did it occur?

No serious student of the Scriptures can deny that God instituted the Sabbath at creation and designated the seventh day to be kept holy. “And on the seventh day God ended His work which He had made; and He rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had made. And God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it He had rested from all His work which God created and made” (Genesis 2:2–3). It was later codified as the Fourth Commandment (Exodus 20:8–11).

The Word of God makes it expressly clear that Sabbath observance is a special sign or “mark” between God and His people. There is also no uncertainty that Christ, His disciples, and the first-century Christians kept the seventh-day Sabbath as commanded—the day we now call “Saturday” (Mark 2:28; Luke 4:16).

Is There Any Biblical Support for Sunday Observance?

There is absolutely no New Testament text stating that God, Yeshua-Jesus, or the apostles changed the Sabbath to Sunday—not a text, not a word, not even a hint or suggestion. If there were, those chapters and verses would be loudly heralded by Sabbath opposers. Had Paul or any other apostle taught a change from Sabbath to Sunday, the first day of the week, an absolute firestorm of protest would have arisen from conservative Jewish Christians. The Pharisees and scribes would have insisted that Paul or any other person even suggesting such a thing be stoned to death for the sin of Sabbath-breaking. This would have been a much larger issue than the controversy over circumcision!

The self-righteous Pharisees had already falsely accused Christ of breaking the Sabbath because He violated the added man-made rules and traditions they placed upon the Sabbath (Mark 2:24). The total absence of any such controversy over a change in the day of worship is one of the best evidences showing the apostles and other New Testament Christians did notchange the day. On the contrary, we have a record of many Sabbaths that Paul and his traveling companions kept long after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Read of them in your own Bible in Acts 13:14, 27, 42–44; 15:21; 16:13; 17:2; and 18:4. Acts 13:42–44 is especially significant in that Paul and Barnabas, when speaking at a Jewish synagogue, were invited to speak again the nextSabbath. This would have been Paul’s golden opportunity to tell the people to meet with him the next day rather than waiting a whole week for the Sabbath. But, “on the next Sabbath almost the whole city [Jews and Gentiles alike] gathered to hear the word of the Lord.”

Yet today, most of the Christian professing world keeps Sunday, the first day of the week, calling it the Sabbath. The question arises then, who changed the Sabbath to Sunday, and how did it occur? The answer may amaze you!

Biblical Testimony.

The New Testament plainly shows we are to continue keeping the commandments (Mathew 5:17–18; 19:17; 28:20)—all ten of them. Where, then, do men get the “authority” to change the Fourth Commandment by substituting Sunday for the original Sabbath Christ and the apostles kept?

The Bible prophesied many centuries earlier that the time would come when men would think to change times and laws (Daniel 7:25). Many Bible prophecies are “dual” in nature—that is, they have a type and antitype, an earlier and a later fulfillment. Though speaking specifically of the soon-coming antichrist, we can see the forerunner type documented in history.

The Watering Down of the Sabbath in the First 300 Years

The Christians during the apostolic era, from about 35 to 100 A.D., kept Sabbath on the designated seventh day of the week. For the first 300 years of Christian history, when the Roman emperors regarded themselves as gods, Christianity became an “illegal religion,” and God’s people were scattered abroad (Acts 8:1). Judaism, however, was regarded at that time as “legal,” as long as they obeyed Roman laws. Thus, during the apostolic era, Christians found it convenient to let the Roman authorities think of them as Jews, which gained them legitimacy with the Roman government. However, when the Jews rebelled against Rome, the Romans put down their rebellion by destroying Jerusalem in A.D. 70 and again in A.D. 135. Obviously, the Roman government’s suppression of the Jews made it increasingly uncomfortable for Christians to be thought of as Jewish. At that time, Sunday was the rest day of the Roman Empire, whose religion was Mithraism, a form of sun worship. Since Sabbath observance is visible to others, some Christians in the early second century sought to distance themselves from Judaism by observing a different day, thus “blending in” to the society around them.

During the Empire-wide Christian persecutions under Nero, Maximin, Diocletian, and Galerius, Sabbath-keeping Christians were hunted down, tortured, and, for sport, often used for entertainment in the Colisseum.

Constantine Made Sunday a Civil Rest Day.

When Emperor Constantine I—a pagan sun-worshipper—came to power in A.D. 313, he legalized Christianity and made the first Sunday-keeping law. His infamous Sunday enforcement law of March 7, A.D. 321, reads as follows: “On the venerable Day of the Sun let the magistrates and people residing in cities rest, and let all workshops be closed.” (Codex Justinianus 3.12.3, trans. Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, 5th ed. (New York, 1902), 3:380, note 1.)

The Sunday law was officially confirmed by the Roman Papacy. The Council of Laodicea in A.D. 364 decreed, “Christians shall not Judaize and be idle on Saturday but shall work on that day; but the Lord’s day they shall especially honour, and, as being Christians, shall, if possible, do no work on that day. If, however, they are found Judaizing, they shall be shut out from Christ” (Strand, op. cit., citing Charles J. Hefele, A History of the Councils of the Church, 2 [Edinburgh, 1876] 316).

Cardinal Gibbons, in Faith of Our Fathers, 92nd ed., p. 89, freely admits, “You may read the Bible from Genesis to Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious observance of Saturday, a day which we [the Catholic Church] never sanctify.”

Again, “The Catholic Church, … by virtue of her divine mission, changed the day from Saturday to Sunday” (The Catholic Mirror, official publication of James Cardinal Gibbons, Sept. 23, 1893).

“Protestants do not realize that by observing Sunday, they accept the authority of the spokesperson of the Church, the Pope” (Our Sunday Visitor, February 5, 1950).

“Of course the Catholic Church claims that the change [Saturday Sabbath to Sunday] was her act… And the act is a mark of her ecclesiastical authority in religious things” (H.F. Thomas, Chancellor of Cardinal Gibbons).

“Sunday is our mark of authority… The church is above the Bible, and this transference of Sabbath observance is proof of that fact” (Catholic Record of London, Ontario Sept 1, 1923).

A Prophecy Come to Pass!

At this point we need to note an amazing prophecy. Daniel 7:25 foretold, “And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws.” Quoting Daniel 7:25, Adam Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible says:

“He shall speak great words against the Most High] Literally, Sermones quasi Deus loquetur; “He shall speak as if he were God.” So Jerome quotes from Symmachus. To none can this apply so well or so fully as to the popes of Rome. They have assumed infallibility, which belongs only to God. They profess to forgive sins, which belongs only to God. They profess to open and shut heaven, which belongs only to God. They profess to be higher than all the kings of the earth, which belongs only to God. And they go beyond God in pretending to loose whole nations from their oath of allegiance to their kings, when such kings do not please them! And they go against God when they give indulgences for sin. This is the worst of all blasphemies!

And shall wear out the saints] By wars, crusades, massacres, inquisitions, and persecutions of all kinds. What in this way have they not done against all those who have protested against their innovations, and refused to submit to their idolatrous worship? Witness the exterminating crusades published against the Waldenses and Albigenses. Witness John Huss, and Jerome of Prague. Witness the Smithfield fires in England! Witness God and man against this bloody, persecuting, ruthless, and impure Church!

And think to change times and laws] Appointing fasts and feasts; canonizing persons whom he chooses to call saints; granting pardons and indulgences for sins; instituting new modes of worship utterly unknown to the Christian Church; new articles of faith; new rules of practice; and reversing, with pleasure, the laws both of God and man.­–Dodd” (Emphasis his; Clarke’s Commentary on the Bible, Volume IV, p. 594).

Who Changed the Sabbath to Sunday?

Your Bible says, “But in vain [uselessness] they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Matthew 15:9; Mark 7:7).

Further, “To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word [the Bible], it is because there is no light in them” (Isaiah 8:20).

“Prove to me from the Bible alone that I am bound to keep Sunday holy. There is no such law in the Bible. It is a law of the Catholic Church alone. The Catholic Church says, by my divine power I abolish the Sabbath day and command you to keep holy the first day of the week. And lo! The entire civilized world bows down in reverent obedience to the command of the Holy Catholic Church” (Thomas Enright, CSSR, President, Redemptorist College [Roman Catholic], Kansas City, MO, Feb. 18, 1884).

"The Pope has power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ. The Pope has authority and has often exercised it, to dispense with the command of Christ” (Decretal, de Tranlatic Episcop).

The pope has changed the day of rest from the seventh to the first day.He has thought to change the very commandment that was given to cause man to remember his Creator. He has thought to change the greatest commandment in the Decalogue and thus make himself equal with God, or even exalt himself above God. The Lord is unchangeable, therefore His law is immutable; but the pope has exalted himself above God, in seeking to change His immutable precepts of holiness, justice, and goodness. He has trampled underfoot God’s sanctified day, and, on his own authority, put in its place one of the six laboring days. The whole nation has followed after the beast, and every week they rob God of His holy time. The pope has made a breach in the holy law of God, but I saw that the time had fully come for this breach to be made up by the people of God and the waste places built up.EW 65.1

I pleaded before the angel for God to save His people who had gone astray, to save them for His mercy’s sake. When the plagues begin to fall, those who continue to break the holy Sabbath will not open their mouths to plead those excuses that they now make to get rid of keeping it. Their mouths will be closed while the plagues are falling, and the great Lawgiver is requiring justice of those who have had His holy law in derision and have called it “a curse to man,” “miserable,” and “rickety.” When such feel the iron grasp of this law taking hold of them, these expressions will appear before them in living characters, and they will then realize the sin of having that law in derision which the Word of God calls “holy, just, and good.” EW 65.2

God is calling His people out of this erroneous organisation before her (Babylon, thus Vatican) complete fall as prophesied in revelation 18. “Revelation 18:4 And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. 18:5 For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities.” “2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, 6:18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.” Jeremiah 51:45 My people, go ye out of the midst of her, and deliver ye every man his soul from the fierce anger of the LORD. 

The Consequences for not Heeding God’s Last warning 

Those who had not prized God’s Word were hurrying to and fro, wandering from sea to sea, and from the north to the east, to seek the Word of the Lord. Said the angel, “They shall not find it. There is a famine in the land; not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but for hearing the words of the Lord. What would they not give for one word of approval from God! but no, they must hunger and thirst on. Day after day have they slighted salvation, prizing earthly riches and earthly pleasure higher than any heavenly treasure or inducement. They have rejected Jesus and despised His saints. The filthy must remain filthy forever.” EW 281.2

Many of the wicked were greatly enraged as they suffered the effects of the plagues. It was a scene of fearful agony. Parents were bitterly reproaching their children, and children their parents, brothers their sisters, and sisters their brothers.Loud, wailing cries were heard in every direction, “It was you who kept me from receiving the truth which would have saved me from this awful hour.” The people turned upon their ministers with bitter hate and reproached them, saying, “You have not warned us. You told us that all the world was to be converted, and cried, Peace, peace, to quiet every fear that was aroused. You have not told us of this hour; and those who warned us of it you declared to be fanatics and evil men, who would ruin us.” But I saw that the ministers did not escape the wrath of God. Their suffering was tenfold greater than that of their people. EW 282.1

Would you heed God’s call and come out of Babylon or reject and share Babylon’s fate(the seven last plagues and perdition) ?? Would you choose eternal life? The choice is in your hands.

https://amredeemed.com/sunday-deception/vatican-admits-the-change-of-sabbath-was-their-act-not-the-bible/

 

Smithsonian Institution admits to destroying thousands of Giant Human Skeletons in early 1900's.

 

A US Supreme Court ruling has forced the Smithsonian institution to release classified papers dating from the early 1900′s that proves the organization was involved in a major historical cover up of evidence showing giants human remains in the tens of thousands had been uncovered all across America and were ordered to be destroyed by high level administrators to protect the mainstream chronology of human evolution at the time.
The allegations stemming from the American Institution of Alternative Archeology (AIAA) that the Smithsonian Institution had destroyed thousands of giant human remains during the early 1900′s was not taken lightly by the Smithsonian who responded by suing the organization for defamation and trying to damage the reputation of the 168-year old institution.
During the court case, new elements were brought to light as several Smithsonian whistle blowers admitted to the existence of documents that allegedly proved the destruction of tens of thousands of human skeletons reaching between 6 feet and 12 feet in height, a reality mainstream archeology can not admit to for different reasons, claims AIAA spokesman, James Churward.

 

The turning point of the court case was when a 1.3 meter long human femur bone was shown as evidence in court of the existence of such giant human bones. The evidence came as a blow to the Smithsonian’s lawyers as the bone had been stolen from the Smithsonian by one of their high level curators in the mid 1930′s who had kept the bone all his life and which had admitted on his deathbed in writing of the undercover operations of the Smithsonian.
"It is a terrible thing that is being done to the American people" he wrote in the letter. "We are hiding the truth about the forefathers of humanity, our ancestors, the giants who roamed the earth as recalled in the Bible and ancient texts of the world".
The US Supreme Court has since forced the Smithsonian Institution to publicly release classified information about anything related to the “destruction of evidence pertaining to the mound builder culture” and to elements “relative to human skeletons of greater height than usual”, a ruling the AIAA is extremely enthused about.

 

"The public release of these documents will help archaeologists and historians to reevaluate current theories about human evolution and help us greater our understanding of the mound builder culture in America and around the world" explains AIAA director, Hans Guttenberg.
"Finally, after over a century of lies, the truth about our giant ancestors shall be revealed to the world" he acknowledges, visibly satisfied by the court ruling.
The documents are scheduled to be released in 2015 and the operation will be coordinated by an independent scientific organization to assure political neutrality.
Editors note: I put a question mark on this story, but if this story is true, history can be rewritten, so let's wait and see if they release the documents in 2015 or not.
Thanks to: Ken Pfeiffer - worldufophotosandnews.org

 

http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.fi/2014/12/smithsonian-institution-admits-to.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/qPIEXj+(UFO+Sightings+Hotspot) 

 in early 1900's.

 

 

 

A US Supreme Court ruling has forced the Smithsonian institution to release classified papers dating from the early 1900′s that proves the organization was involved in a major historical cover up of evidence showing giants human remains in the tens of thousands had been uncovered all across America and were ordered to be destroyed by high level administrators to protect the mainstream chronology of human evolution at the time.
The allegations stemming from the American Institution of Alternative Archeology (AIAA) that the Smithsonian Institution had destroyed thousands of giant human remains during the early 1900′s was not taken lightly by the Smithsonian who responded by suing the organization for defamation and trying to damage the reputation of the 168-year old institution.
During the court case, new elements were brought to light as several Smithsonian whistle blowers admitted to the existence of documents that allegedly proved the destruction of tens of thousands of human skeletons reaching between 6 feet and 12 feet in height, a reality mainstream archeology can not admit to for different reasons, claims AIAA spokesman, James Churward.

The turning point of the court case was when a 1.3 meter long human femur bone was shown as evidence in court of the existence of such giant human bones. The evidence came as a blow to the Smithsonian’s lawyers as the bone had been stolen from the Smithsonian by one of their high level curators in the mid 1930′s who had kept the bone all his life and which had admitted on his deathbed in writing of the undercover operations of the Smithsonian.
"It is a terrible thing that is being done to the American people" he wrote in the letter. "We are hiding the truth about the forefathers of humanity, our ancestors, the giants who roamed the earth as recalled in the Bible and ancient texts of the world".
The US Supreme Court has since forced the Smithsonian Institution to publicly release classified information about anything related to the “destruction of evidence pertaining to the mound builder culture” and to elements “relative to human skeletons of greater height than usual”, a ruling the AIAA is extremely enthused about.

"The public release of these documents will help archaeologists and historians to reevaluate current theories about human evolution and help us greater our understanding of the mound builder culture in America and around the world" explains AIAA director, Hans Guttenberg.
"Finally, after over a century of lies, the truth about our giant ancestors shall be revealed to the world" he acknowledges, visibly satisfied by the court ruling.
The documents are scheduled to be released in 2015 and the operation will be coordinated by an independent scientific organization to assure political neutrality.
Editors note: I put a question mark on this story, but if this story is true, history can be rewritten, so let's wait and see if they release the documents in 2015 or not.
Thanks to: Ken Pfeiffer - worldufophotosandnews.org

http://ufosightingshotspot.blogspot.fi/2014/12/smithsonian-institution-admits-to.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+blogspot/qPIEXj+(UFO+Sightings+Hotspot) 

 

'Why Did They Hate Us?': Explaining the New Lynching Memorial to My Son.

 

'Why Did They Hate Us?': Explaining the New Lynching Memorial to My Son.

 

Is there any good way to teach children about lynching? After attending the opening of a powerful new memorial and museum, which together explore some of the most painful aspects of American history, I wondered about the prospect of returning there with my 12-year-old son. My husband and I wanted him to learn everything about America’s past—not just the good parts—and we knew most of this material would not appear in his middle-school curriculum.

 

By “this” material, I mean the impressive and moving research, exhibits and artwork gathered in the National Memorial for Peace and Justice and its companion Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration. Both are located in downtown, Montgomery, Alabama a short distance apart. And both are brainchildren of the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI), a nonprofit organization founded by attorney Bryan Stevenson in 1989 that is dedicated to exploring the “history of racial inequality and economic justice in the United States.”

 

As a scholar of African-American history, I was moved by both spaces—more so the memorial, which is a beautiful six-acre outdoor space honoring the victims of more than 4,000 racial-terror lynchings that occurred throughout the United States between 1877 and 1950. The first of its kind, this memorial is a profoundly important acknowledgment. The museum brings to the fore material about slavery, mass incarceration and racial violence that to date has rarely been seen or known by a wide audience, with the exception of the “Without Sanctuary” exhibit of lynching photos, which has been traveling nationally and available online since 2000.

 

We have never sheltered our son from life events, good, bad or otherwise. But when I told colleagues that I was taking him on a research trip to sites of the domestic slave trade ending with the memorial and museum, they asked, “How can you teach the history of lynching to children? What should we tell them? How are you going to prepare your son for the trip?” My response: “I will tell him the truth and be with him as he processes it.”

 

On the flight to Alabama, I asked him if he knew what lynching was. He said, “the hanging of someone by the neck, and then you cut off their head.” Before I elaborated on the more multi-faceted definition—which includes impaling, burning alive, dragging by a car or horse, castration and more—I asked him where he learned that. He said, “From you Mom, you taught me.”

 

My son spent the first 10 years of his life with me writing a book about the history of slavery. When The Price for Their Pound of Flesh: The Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation was published last year, he was both proud and relieved. He was proud because our everyday dinner conversation was about the ways enslaved people valued themselves and how they coped with enslavement. He knows about family separation, auctions and sales, and has been comfortable with this history since he was old enough to understand it (around age 5.) He was relieved to know that he’d be able to spend more time with me and experience family life without “Pound” (our nickname for my book) conversations. I knew that after this weekend, though, I’d have more lessons to share with him, lessons that include the challenging experiences of his ancestors and many other black, Latino, Native American and even white folks—men, women and children—who died as a result of lynching.

 

An installation the new Legacy Museum, part of the National Memorial for Peace and Justice. (Credit: Audra Melton/The New York Times/Redux).

 

Hearing from the Enslaved.

 

We started with the Legacy Museum, which documents U.S. history from slavery to mass incarceration. Visitors enter it on the site of the domestic slave trade where enslaved people were housed in jail pens prior to being sold and transported to their new owners. On this spot, from the 1830s through the Civil War, black families were separated and sold. Husbands lost their wives, children lost their siblings. For most of them, it was the last time they saw each other. This warehouse, situated at 122 Commerce Street and owned and operated by a man named John Murphy, was one of five large depots of active slave trading in downtown Montgomery.

 

My son was particularly mesmerized by the holograms of enslaved people in makeshift jail cells who came alive as you approached their unit. They began talking to him in first person, recounting their experiences with captivity—men, women and children, all imprisoned and about to be sold. The older woman at the end cell appeared singing a beautiful song that was so spirit-filled and enticing that it drew my son to her. He paused and said, “This is powerful!” Then, he asked a more practical question about the display: “How did they do this? It’s so real.”

 

After leaving the slave-jail section, we skimmed past the slavery exhibits because he learned much of that history at home and at school. In his school’s robust 8-week unit on slavery, he read slave narratives, watched the 1977 and 2016 versions of “Roots,” and learned about slave labor, family and community. Each student wrote a letter to a formerly enslaved person and created a shadow-box of the life of the enslaved.

 

The museum’s open space features curated art installations by artists Titus Kaphar and Sanford Biggers that add a contemporary flair. Those, along with a section of more historic work by famous African-American artists such as Elizabeth Catlett and Kay Brown, in some ways offered a refreshing relief from the hard history lesson. My son appreciated Kaphar’s piece entitled “Doubt,” a larger-than-life sculpture of a naked African-American man on his knees looking upward while holding a crumbled flag. It reminded him of a mix between the protest of Colin Kaepernick and the anti-slavery image, “Am I not a Man and A Brother?”

 

Thousands of black men and women carrying signs urging control and the ending of lynchings, 1922. (Credit: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images).

 

Yesterday’s Terror Helps Explain Today’s.

 

Large words on the walls such as “Kidnapped,” and “Terrorized” describe the experiences of slavery and incarceration in America. My son stopped at an image of a 14-year-old boy crying on his mother’s shoulder, the caption indicating that this young man had just received a life sentence. My son was silent. The boy looked his age. I waited to see if he would ask me anything or comment. He didn’t. He sighed and took it in.

 

I had trouble with the image because it is something so many black parents fear, given the challenging racial climate we live in. But it reminded us, importantly, that this current climate has a history. For the past few years, my son has been trying to make sense of what he’s witnessed on television—the massacre at a Charleston, South Carolina church and the disproportionally larger numbers of recorded deaths of unarmed black people. Learning about the details and “rationales” of lynchings, for example, helped him connect the current moment of racial terror to decades of terror. The Legacy Museum, like the work of Ida B. Wells in Red Record, has the statistics and horrific images to prove it.

 

There was so much about young incarcerated men and boys in the exhibit that I found myself wondering why there was not equal treatment of women and girls. Current research confirms that black women not only make up a disproportionate number of females behind bars, but they also experience violence at the hands of law-enforcement officers at higher rates than other groups of women. Their stories are not well represented in the museum. As I was reflecting on this, I realized I had lost track of my son.

 

I found him sitting at a booth listening to the testimonies of incarcerated people—including, he eagerly told me, two women. We listened together. One woman talked about the poor quality of the food and being abused by the prison guard staff. All the stories made my son sad, especially the ones of those wrongfully imprisoned. As he looked around the room to the segregation wall he asked, “Why did they hate us so much?”

 

Just as I was collecting my thoughts and trying to respond to that complex question, one of the EJI staff members came to take us to the Memorial. I was off the hook—for now.

 

Memories Held in the Soil.

 

Before we left the museum, my son paused at the two-sided, floor-to-ceiling display of jars of dirt representing lynching victims. Each jar holds the soil from the site of a lynching and the name of the person lynched. Here I saw familiar names of women such as Mary Turner and Laura Nelson, women whose stories I often share in my African-American history class and that Princeton-based scholar Crystal Feimster writes about in her book Southern Horrors. My son also noticed that entire families were lynched in one setting since there were several people with the same last name. I happen to know some of the stories and could tell him who they were.

 

As he read the names and locations, he saw the different soil composition: Georgia red clay, greenish-brown Kentucky mud and orange-brown South Carolina dirt. He touched the jars and was noticeably moved. At first I wanted to tell him not to touch, but I could tell he was drawn to them and wanted to get closer to the people they represented. The dirt was something simple, something tangible, something physical from the site of terror. It also gave him an opportunity to get close to an object that perhaps the deceased were physically a part of, and he wanted to make that connection.

 

As he reflected on what it meant, he saw from a slight distance, for the second time in his life, real images of lynching victims, which appear on a screen and then blur out after a few seconds. He was visibly shaken and slowly walked over to the touch screen. The charred body of a black man…the body of another hanging from a tree with thousands of spectators beneath him…the body of Laura Nelson…screen blurs. I did not mention that Nelson was lynched with her 14-year-old son. I could tell, he had seen enough.

 

“This is what it looked like? This is terrible. How could people celebrate killing someone like this?,” my son asked. These were rhetorical questions that needed no response. He and I both knew that there were no justifications for this type of hate. No one should die this way.

 

Part of a sculpture by Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, on the grounds of the new National Memorial for Peace and Justice. (Credit: Audra Melton/The New York Times/Redux).

 

Grieving Unknown Victims.

 

We left the Legacy Museum and headed to the Memorial, where we were fortunate to have the grounds all to ourselves. The first thing my son engaged with was the striking life-size sculpture produced by West African artist Kwame Akoto-Bamfo, a  rendering of some half-dozen enslaved people chained together in a circle, their faces contorted with horror, fear, pain and strength. My son walked all around it and squatted down and looked in their faces. Men, a woman holding an infant, some on their knees, others standing looking shocked at the reality of their captivity. It was like he wanted each of them to know that he saw them and respected them. He said, “We were strong.” I reminded him that we still are.

 

Then he asked if I could go up the “beautiful hill” with him to the large memorial of 800 weathered-looking steel monuments, some standing and some hanging from large metal rods. When he saw the first section of monuments, which each represent a state and county and the names of those lynched in that area, he said, “This is a lot!…this is too much…this is so bad.” As we wove between large copper pillars with names and death dates listed, my son immediately gravitated to the word “unknown” on one Butts County, Georgia memorial. This person was lynched on November 20, 1899 and that’s all we know—not their name or their age, just the date and location of their lynching. This troubled my son and weighed on his mind. He said it was sad we didn’t know their names because “it’s just like a loss and nobody knows…it’s like they [perpetrators] didn’t care.”

 

I had not thought as much about the “unknown” when I visited the memorial the week prior because I was thankful for the families who now had a place to honor their loved ones. But now my son allowed me a space to grieve their loss as well. My husband reminded us that there are families whose relative went away and never returned, and the loved ones never knew why. The victims are unknown to us, but somebody missed them.

 

‘Why Did They Hate Us?’

 

As we turned the first corner, my son realized that the memorials were going from eye level to above his head: “Oh…they’re getting higher!” He wanted to know if the height represented how high they lynched them. For me, the height was symbolic of lynchings where victims were hung from trees or high platforms. We were forced to look up. We rounded the second corner, and by now the slabs were way above our heads.

 

We were drawn to the text panels of the lynching stories these slabs represented: “George Briscoe was lynched” in Maryland “for an alleged robbery.” “Ballie Crutchfield was lynched” in Tennessee “for searching for her brother,” while Zachariah Walker was burned alive by “1,000 men, women and children,” a lynch mob. “Henry Patterson was lynched” in Florida “for asking a white woman for a drink of water.” My son read them and became visibly frustrated: “They couldn’t do anything with white people! This is frightening… These reasons are so stupid.” I knew he was upset and disturbed by what he was reading, and I also knew that it was important for him to know this history. It also helped him understand our current moment. It all came together here. We talked about the senseless killing of blacks and about the connection to lynching in the past.

 

As we talked, I was reminded of the importance of teaching our children the truth about American history. For one, children attended lynchings and were also victims. White parents in the 1880s to 1950s had no problem taking their sons and daughters to these spectacle events. My son was quick to see images of children his age attending lynchings with their parents in their Sunday best with smiles on their faces. Hate is taught, and it is not something we want to teach our son. But he saw hate and so did we.

 

“Who did this?” he kept asking us. Why don’t we know more about the perpetrators? He wanted to hear from those who committed these crimes. He wanted to ask them himself why they would kill someone for voting, for asking for water, for looking at a white person. I used this conversation to return to his question “Why did they hate us?” I shared that hate does not always make sense and that some people hate us because of the color of our skin. But I could not answer all his questions, except to say that hate combined with power and authority can cause a great deal of harm.

 

When turning the final corner inside the memorial, my son paused at a waterfall wall that bore this inscription: “THOUSANDS OF AFRICAN AMERICANS ARE UNKNOWN VICTIMS OF RACIAL TERROR LYNCHINGS WHOSE DEATHS CANNOT BE DOCUMENTED, MANY WHOSE NAMES WILL NEVER BE KNOWN. THEY ARE HONORED HERE.” He called this the “wall of tears.” He spent a lot of time here. He put his hand on the wall and let the water run over it as he stood and thought about the unknown victims of lynchings. We left him alone. Several minutes later, he walked over to us, and I asked him why he named it what he did. He said “because the water represents the tears of the families who lost loved ones.” I nodded. But he added, “there is not enough water here.”… (By 

 

Daina Ramey Berry who is an award-winning historian at the University of Texas at Austin and author of several books on slavery including The Price for Their Pound of Flesh, the Value of the Enslaved, from Womb to Grave, in the Building of a Nation. Follow her on twitter @DainaRameyBerry.

 

https://www.history.com/news/lynching-museum-visiting-children