The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina

In January 2019, the city council of Salisbury, North Carolina passed a resolution to renounce its past racial injustices, recognize the ways it has continued to uphold racial inequality, and work to improve equity in the future. The city, from a governmental level, promised to remedy its violent, r...

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Main Author: Wahid, Miriam “Mimi” Imani
Other Authors: Ba Wendel, Delia Duong
Format: Thesis
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2022
Online Access:https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138924
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author Wahid, Miriam “Mimi” Imani
author2 Ba Wendel, Delia Duong
author_facet Ba Wendel, Delia Duong
Wahid, Miriam “Mimi” Imani
author_sort Wahid, Miriam “Mimi” Imani
collection MIT
description In January 2019, the city council of Salisbury, North Carolina passed a resolution to renounce its past racial injustices, recognize the ways it has continued to uphold racial inequality, and work to improve equity in the future. The city, from a governmental level, promised to remedy its violent, racially divisive history and specifically renounced a lynching that occurred there in 1906. The Resolution wasn’t easy to pass, and spent months in revision, protest, and standstill. The process by which the Resolution was presented, revised, and eventually approved opens up the question of to what extent the Resolution has had, or will have, an impact on racial justice in Salisbury. This thesis also examines the ways that reconciliation is occurring in public space. In the three years since the resolution was first introduced, community members have been working with the Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Remembrance Project to erect a marker which memorializes the victims of racial terror in this town. The town has simultaneously engaged in a debate over its confederate monument, Fame. Through archival research, literature review, and narrative storytelling, I analyze the formal reconciliation process initiated in Salisbury as well as the role of memory, monuments, and markers in that work.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1389242022-01-15T03:06:25Z The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina Wahid, Miriam “Mimi” Imani Ba Wendel, Delia Duong Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Urban Studies and Planning In January 2019, the city council of Salisbury, North Carolina passed a resolution to renounce its past racial injustices, recognize the ways it has continued to uphold racial inequality, and work to improve equity in the future. The city, from a governmental level, promised to remedy its violent, racially divisive history and specifically renounced a lynching that occurred there in 1906. The Resolution wasn’t easy to pass, and spent months in revision, protest, and standstill. The process by which the Resolution was presented, revised, and eventually approved opens up the question of to what extent the Resolution has had, or will have, an impact on racial justice in Salisbury. This thesis also examines the ways that reconciliation is occurring in public space. In the three years since the resolution was first introduced, community members have been working with the Equal Justice Initiative’s Community Remembrance Project to erect a marker which memorializes the victims of racial terror in this town. The town has simultaneously engaged in a debate over its confederate monument, Fame. Through archival research, literature review, and narrative storytelling, I analyze the formal reconciliation process initiated in Salisbury as well as the role of memory, monuments, and markers in that work. S.B. 2022-01-14T14:38:14Z 2022-01-14T14:38:14Z 2021-06 2021-07-27T20:25:28.794Z Thesis https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138924 In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted Copyright retained by author(s) https://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/ application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Wahid, Miriam “Mimi” Imani
The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina
title The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina
title_full The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina
title_fullStr The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina
title_full_unstemmed The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina
title_short The Path Toward Racial Reconciliation in Salisbury, North Carolina
title_sort path toward racial reconciliation in salisbury north carolina
url https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/138924
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