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, Manasota Remembers in partnership with The Equal Justice Initiative hosted the Racial Justice Essay Contest Awards Celebration on March 30, 2023. Sixteen local high school students were recognized for participating in the Essay Contest.
EJI awarded scholarships for the top four winning essays. In addition, the Sarasota & Manatee Community Remembrance Project awarded the 1st place winner an all-expense paid trip to Montgomery, Alabama to visit the EJI headquarters as well as other historic sites such as the EJI Legacy Museum, Rosa Parks Museum and the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Click here to watch Nora’s recent interview with Renee Gilmore on Empowering Voices.
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