2 and a Half Hours

The One Where Dylan tours The Legacy Museum in Montgomery, AL.

2.5 Hours…that’s all we could bare.. 😐

Transcript

Unknown: 0:00

So I said, two and a half hours, two and a half hours, and only made it halfway through. This past week, I went to the legacy museum sponsored by the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Alabama. Two and a half hours. I think I might have emotionally checked out maybe hour and 20 in the, the level of emotional and spiritual and intellectual work that went into just walking through that space was mind numbing. Not something that I could foresee, I was told to prepare myself before I went in. I didn't believe them. I thought that it would be mainly information that I knew already. And then it will just be presented in a different way. And while that was true, it didn't prepare me for what I walked into. Now, I'm not going to walk you step by step through the legacy Museum, I think that it's worth you going. I think it's worth the trip. It is dumb, accessible, the, the admission was only $5. And for the experience that you got, they could have charged 50. And it might not have been enough. The work that went into it to to create the sounds, the feelings, the it was amazing. It really felt like you were stepping on to holy ground. onto the ground that was not meant to be taken lightly. That told the story of your people, my people that has been told, but not completely, has not been completely accepted as truth. Or that it has any effect on today's world. And honestly, it built today's world. It took you from slavery to mass incarceration. I checked out at lynching. I couldn't do it. When I walked in, it was just the sounds of the waves. I have a spot where you come in, it's slavery's. It's like the sound of these waves crashing up against this boat. And then you walk a little further in and I stood at an opening for what felt like an eternity. But maybe I was only there for two or three minutes. So so long that one of the people who worked there said it's okay, you can you can step in here. I didn't think that I could. Because to the left and to the right of me or life, like figures of my ancestors who had been enslaved and been put into these boats, and it felt too real for me. And that's how I knew this was gonna be one. So I walked quietly prayerfully angrily two and a half hours. I don't know what the other half of the museum was, it was probably very good. But I couldn't make it because I wasn't ready emotionally. If felt like at some point, I shut off so that I could protect myself for the rest of the trip. Because there was still other places that I wanted to go see. And I knew that I couldn't. I had taken about as much spiritual weight as I can handle as much trauma as I can absorb I taken enough. And I think that like black people in particular, have sort of mastered this understanding of when we had enough trauma for the day because we're being forced to, because we're being forced, fed consistently. lifeless body when we engage with our history, where we're forced to deal with the fact that like, America hasn't cared about us period. And we know that we hit a point where if we plan to smile, at any point the rest of the day, I need to stop here. If I plan to have a conversation with a white person, at any point, I need to stop here. Because I can get to a point where I won't be able to bring myself out of it, where the emotions will run so high that that I will just express my anger, my pain, my frustration, the hurt on the first person I see. And so it's as to not get into that space, I gotta pull it back, I had to check out two and a half hours. That was my limit. I don't know what your limit is. I don't know if you would get through the whole museum. The plan, honestly, was to go through that museum, and then go over to the peace and justice Memorial. And I couldn't handle both in one day. So I made the decision will come and see that next day. Because I'd had my fill. I don't know if there's a point to this. I want it to wrap it around. But sometimes I think that we need to be comfortable saying that's enough trauma for the day. I can stop here. And for me, I found my limit two and a half hours. That's about as much as I can take on a continuous basis, being entrenched in it two and a half hours. Of absorbing 400 years worth of pain and anxiety and frustration and separation and trauma, two and a half hours of a conversation like that. It's about all I can take before I snap I thank God for my therapist, and my wife, who I can talk to after that to kind of alleviate some of that I am thankful to God that gave me some awareness that I could come out of it that I'm thankful to the peace and justice, the Equal Justice Institute, that they put that thing together, and there was a space for me to come out to because I'm not sure that I would have been able to handle it on my own. It's worth the trip. I know it sounded heavy coming from me. But sometimes you need heavy to build strength to build endurance to know which direction you're going. Sometimes it's the pain that helps you focus. And Lord knows that I was hyperfocus when I left that space. So I'll have to say about that. I'm out