The Equal Justice Initiative’s (EJI) National Memorial for Peace and Justice (located in Montgomery, AL) is the nation’s first comprehensive memorial dedicated to the victims of racial terror lynchings. The permanent memorial space contains monuments that correspond to over 800 counties where lynchings have taken place. Just outside the main Memorial site is a field of identical monuments. EJI has invited each county to retrieve their corresponding monument. In response, a grassroots retrieval coalition that’s currently composed of community members, the City of Birmingham, Birmingham Museum of Art, and faculty and staff from UAB, Birmingham Southern, Samford and Miles College have assembled for this opportunity. Together, we’ve begun the process of preparing for the monument retrieval while developing a number of educational programs and research to explain the importance of confronting and reconciling with this history as well as be an impetus for positively transforming our communities.