Facilitating Feeling?: The Relationship between Memorials and Emotions

This article explores if and how national memorials impact collective emotions among local residents, focusing on the National Memorial for Peace and Justice (NMPJ) in Montgomery, Alabama. This understudied question is of sociological importance given the change in federal policy regarding public memorials, particularly the removal of references to oppression and violence that racialized minority groups experienced. To answer the question, we assess the effects of the NMPJ by comparing Montgomery residents' levels of guilt, threat, shame, anger, and resentment to nonresidents. Using longitudinal data, we conduct OLS regression analyses, regressing post‐opening emotion levels on preopening levels of said emotion, residency, if a respondent visited the memorial, racial identification, and sociodemographics. The results indicate that the NMPJ did not have an independent long‐term effect on emotional change (assessed 4 months after its opening); however, visiting the memorial increased guilt, net of racial identification. We conclude by discussing the policy implications in light of the finding that no localized emotional effects of the memorial emerged.