Lessons Learned from 25 Years of Resistance and Remembrance
If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress * Progress does not come easily. This is especially so at ICSC, where history is and will always be our north star. Only when we confront the past – when we face our failings with courage and conviction – are we challenged to be our best selves. By remembering and drawing lessons from what came before, we make a commitment to repair and to do better. As Shirley Chisholm, the first African American woman elected to the United States Congress put it, “You don’t make progress by standing on the sidelines, whimpering and complaining. You make progress by implementing ideas.” As seen in these final examples, through Sites of Conscience, and the support ICSC provides them, communities today have the tools they need to ask the questions that matter, to listen in more empathetic and thoughtful ways, and to overcome even the highest of hurdles.
Founded in 1989 by Bryan Stevenson, the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing legal representation to those illegally convicted, unfairly sentenced, or abused in state jails and prisons. In 2018, EJI opened the Legacy Museum and the National Memorial for Peace and Justice to address the legacy of slavery, lynching and racial segregation. The organization joined ICSC in 2024.
* Frederick Douglass’s “West Indian Emancipation Speech” delivered on August 3, 1857 in Canandaigua, New York.
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