The last words of the Pledge of Allegiance, which every American public school student recites every morning, read: “one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

 

No matter how many times or by how many people these words are recited, they do not automatically become true. America has denied liberty and justice to Black people since 1619, and she continues to do so over 400 years later.

 

The 32ft train attempts to convey the immense scale of Black life that police have taken, just within a 63 month period. None of the 1,453 victims listed enjoyed liberty or justice. 

 

Liberty would have been a world where they were able to live freely without fear of being targeted because of the color of their skin.

 

Justice would have been a world where no one was able to kill them in the first place. In a just America, they would all be alive today.

 

America has made several promises to her citizens that she has never lived up to. “Liberty and justice for all” is one of them. The protests and the unrest that have taken place for decades demanding accountability and the end of police killings should and will continue until the killings stop, police are held accountable, and there is truly liberty and justice for all.

 

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The train is 32ft long and is printed with the names of approximately 1,453 Black men and women who were shot and killed by police. The vast majority of names were copied from the Washington Post’s database on police shootings; a few were added from other sources. It does not include the names of victims who were killed by police by any other method, with some exceptions.

 

The names of all Black victims in the database from 01/06/2015 to 03/14/2021 are printed.