It was 96 degrees yesterday in Montgomery, Alabama. I sat in the shade under the canopy of The Legacy Museum and had a conversation with the security guard. Her name is Ivory. We talked for an hour.

She’s sixty-two and remembers as a child helping her great-grandmother pick cotton, dragging her small sack through the fields following after Big Mama. She remembers riding the Trailways bus into Montgomery for groceries, and the long walk back to the farm in the evening lugging groceries from the bus stop.

Ivory spent thirty years working for the Montgomery County Sheriffs Department in Juvenile Detention. When she retired, she went to work part time for the firm that provides security to the museum. She has four kids, Bakith, Anthony, Precious and Marquis. Only one of her children is biological, the other three she adopted from the detention center. Anthony was a preemie and spent months in the NICU before she brought him home. Precious was five when Ivory adopted her.

Ivory was a single mother. Her mother helped. Ivory took mornings and nights. Her mother did the cooking, was there after school and made sure they did their homework.

Bakith is an over-the-road truck driver, he owns his own rig. Anthony lives in Montgomery and works for Hyundai. Precious is married and lives in Pensacola. Marquis lives in Birmingham. Ivory has sixteen grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Over the Fourth of July, there was a first-birthday party for one of her great-grandchildren and all four of her kids were there.

I asked Ivory about the museum, “The museum is difficult, it’s a lot to stomach.” I asked her where I should go in Montgomery; she encouraged me to go to the new waterpark.

Ivory has a sister. Her sister had several miscarriages before George was born. He was her only child. Four years ago, George was killed. His pregnant girlfriend’s new boyfriend shot him, six times while he was standing then emptied the gun into his body as he lay dying on the ground. George’s daughter is six, his son, who wasn’t born when he was killed, is four. Ivory’s sister is fifty-three and drinks heavily now.

The Legacy Museum: From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration provides a comprehensive history of the United States with a focus on the legacy of slavery. From the Transatlantic Slave Trade and its impact on the North and coastal communities across America through the Domestic Slave Trade and Reconstruction, the museum provides detailed interactive content and compelling narratives. Lynching, codified racial segregation, and the emergence of over-incarceration in the 20th century are examined in depth and brought to life through film, images, and first-person narratives.©