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The Idea for a Memorial
After the Michael Donald verdict, Center chief trial counsel Morris Dee and Mrs. Donald were honored at a state NAACP conference. Dees was stunned to learn that many youth there did not know the names of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and others who died during the Civil Rights Movement.
It troubled Dees that the teenagers enjoyed the benefits of the Movement but had little knowledge of its sacrifices. He vowed to create a monument to honor the memory of the civil rights martyrs and to educate future generations about the important events of the Movement.
To design the memorial, the Center turned to Maya Lin. As a Yale University student seven years earlier, she had gained national prominence when her design was selected to honor soldiers killed in Vietnam. |