Imagine the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park without any statues or memorials. People picnic, bike, ride horses, yet no one commemorates or acknowledges the past or thousands who died.
Imagine Veterans’ Bridge without flags. Or no memorials for our Fallen Five.
Unthinkable, isn’t it? Memorialization is part of being human; these are our hallowed grounds.
So, too, the Walnut Street Bridge.
In 1893, a white mob lynched Alfred Blount from the first span on the downtown side. (Some 2,000 people came to view his body, hanging from the bridge, according to Equal Justice Initiative.)