The education committee for Mansota Remembers, led by the Manasota ASALH Education Committee, is partnering with EJI to bring educational programming to Sarasota/Manatee counties to further expand understanding of American Slavery, the US Consittution, the Civil War, the Reconstruction Era, and Contemporary Race Relations by augmenting historical information about African Americans that is often omitted.
Essay Contest
Manasota Remembers Racial Justice Essay Contest
As a part of the overarching Community Remembrance Project, The Equal Justice Initiative hosts an essay component, in which high school students write and submit essays on the theme Justice Denied. Our local high school students have submitted their essays, EJI has completed the judging of the essays and the winners will be announced at the Essay Contest Awards Celebration on March 30, 2023.
EJI will award scholarships up to $5,000 to winning participants. In addition, the Sarasota & Manatee Community Remembrance Project will award the winner(s) a trip to Montgomery, Alabama to visit the EJI museum & memorial.
To RSVP for the Essay Contest Awards Celebration, click here.
The Soil Collection Project
As a way to further education on the history of racial violence, EJI has joined with community groups and individuals to travel to counties across the nation to collect soil from every lynching site as an act of remembrance and commitment to honoring the victims of this horrific era of terror.
EJI's soil collection project is intended to provide opportunities for community members to get closer to the legacy of lynching and to contribute to the effort to build a lasting and more visible memory of our history of racial injustice. These jars of collected soil are on exhibit in the new Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, as well as in other exhibit spaces, to reflect the history of lynching and our generation's resolve to confront the continuing challenges that racial inequality creates.
While collecting soil from the site of a lynching is a simple gesture, EJI and its partnering counties believe it is an important act of remembrance that can begin a process of recovery and reconciliation to our history of lynching and terror. The named containers with collected soil that are created become important pieces of our broken and terrifying past. We believe these jars represent the hope of community members who seek racial justice and a greater commitment to the rule of law and human rights