MCRP’s Core Team during the soil collection for Ben Evans and Ephraim Hall.
Our Core Team
Our core team consists of a small group of multiracial, dedicated men and women who each fulfill specific roles that make up the Madison County Remembrance Project.
From left:
David Person, owner of David Person Media, LLC is our humble, fearless leader who knows how to rally a community. He has worn many hats around town, from talk show host and columnist to director/producer. In addition to consulting with various clients and partners, David co-hosts Alabama Politics This Week with columnist Josh Moon.
Angela Curry is the Executive Director of United Women of Color (UWOC). We all benefit from the insight and fresh ideas she brings as someone whose career is centered around shaping and developing a diverse community and cultivating civic engagement.
The Reverend Michael Goldsmith, Rector of the Episcopal Church of the Nativity - Huntsville, was part of a small team in Gadsden, Alabama who successfully accomplished EJI’s goals of bringing community remembrance through soil collections and, ultimately, a memorial marker to Gadsden. His experience and guidance are invaluable to our efforts.
Tammy Cooney, Chief Programs Officer at Burritt on the Mountain functions as our minutes taker but brings so much more to the table by way of her organization skills and her get it done attitude.
Amy Jackson is honored to be a part of this important group as the MCRP administrator (communication liaison & detail wrangler). Amy’s work has ranged from newspaper copy editor to artist to tutor with the Boys and Girls Club of North Alabama. Her passion for supporting nonprofits began in college and continues to this day.
Cooper Green is the Community Service Minister at Interfaith Mission Service (IMS) and has years of experience working with volunteer organizations that seek to foster racial reconciliation. He is always willing to go above and beyond to do the work with excellence.
Katie Calvert is an artist and graphic designer who handles the graphics and the public image of this project. Katie previously worked as a Suicide Hotline and Helpline call taker for Crisis Services of North Alabama (CSNA) and has also volunteered with a few anti-human trafficking organizations.
In 2017, a group of Madison County, Alabama residents created the Madison County Remembrance Project (MCRP) to help our local community understand and acknowledge our county’s history of racial terror lynching.
The Madison County Remembrance Project (MCRP) began as a vision of the late Leon Burnette. Leon was an entrepreneur who had worked for years in the music industry as a road manager and producer with acts such as The Commodores, Midnight Starr and Kirk Whalum.
But it was Leon’s passion for civil rights history that led him to reach out to UAH student activist Aaron McNully and media personality David Person in 2017. His idea was to partner with the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) in Montgomery to commemorate Jim Crow era lynching victims in Madison County. With Leon’s guidance and EJI connections, they founded what is now MCRP.
In 2018 the Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) opened the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery.
In 2019, EJI and MCRP mapped out the following 3-step process for the Madison County community to confront its past and memorialize the lives that were lost:
Soil collections at the Madison County lynching sites.
Installation of historical markers in Madison County
Installation of Madison County’s EJI monument at a prominent location TBD.
The purpose of this project is to advance truth and reconciliation around race and to more honestly confront the legacy of slavery, lynching and segregation. “Our nation’s history of racial injustice casts a shadow across the American landscape,” EJI Bryan Stevenson explains. “The shadow cannot be lifted until we shine the light of truth on the destructive violence that shaped our nation, traumatized people of color, and compromised our commitment to the rule of law and to equal justice.”
In memory of Mr. Arthur Leon Burnette (May 18, 1951 - December 25, 2023)
We are grateful to you for inspiring this work that we are committed to see through!