I wrote them another letter which is as follows.
March
1, 2019
Edward
H. Sebesta
edwardsebesta@gmail.com
Jerome
Gray
Chairman
of the Board
Equal
Justice Initiative
122
Commerce Street
Montgomery,
Alabama 36104
Dear Mr.
Gray:
I am again
writing you to very be careful that you do not inadvertently collude with the City
of Dallas in its ongoing incompetence in confronting its past. Specifically, its failure to recognize
Dallas’s special history regarding lynching and its possible use of a memorial
element to obscure its historical past or obscure its incompetence in
addressing the historical past.
As you
know Hatton W. Sumners was a leading opponent of federal anti-lynching laws in
the first half of the 20th century. His opposition is one of the
reasons a federal anti-lynching law wasn’t passed until 2018. His speeches, one in 1922 and one in 1937, in
opposition to federal anti-lynching legislation are vile. I am still
transcribing them and will put them online at some point. I will announce them
on my blog, https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/.
Yet
Dallas honors Hatton W. Sumners. The Red Museum, in Dallas has a 4th
floor Hatton W. Sumners Court Room. I
have pictures in my blog posting https://dallaslandscape.blogspot.com/2019/03/hatton-w-sumners-court-room-at-red.html. There is also the Hatton W. Sumners
Foundation with their web page http://www.hattonsumners.org/index.htm.
Even a cursory Google search will show that the most of the institutions of
higher learning and others have involvements with the Hatton W. Sumners
Foundation.
Every
year many students are going to Hatton W. Sumners functions unaware.
This is
aided by the historical institutions of the state of Texas. In the Texas State
Historical Association entry for Hatton W. Sumners there is absolutely no
mention of his role in blocking federal anti-lynching legislation. This is the
link to their entry for him: https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fsu04.
The
Hatton W. Sumners Court Room and the Hatton W. Sumners Foundation are just two
items I have discovered so far on the Dallas built and very racialized
landscape. I am still in progress and further discoveries might be made. You
might have to consider that a sister memorial might be next to a Hatton W.
Sumners item.
I think
the City of Dallas very likely would use the Equal Justice Institute sister
monuments as a façade to cover up its past and to construct a narrative how
good Dallas is now in contrast to its past.
I hope
the Equal Justice Institute doesn’t enable the City of Dallas in its failure to
acknowledge its past.
Sincerely
Yours,
Edward
H. Sebesta
CC: Eva
Ansley, Secretary/Treasurer; Ophelia Dahl; Scott Douglas, Executive Director;
Dr. Paul Farmer; Dr. Randy Hertz; George Kendall; Dr. Martha Morgan; Byran
Stevenson; Kim Taylor-Thompson; Kathy Vincent; and Carlos Williams, Executive
Director
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