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This is why sites of remembrance are so important as I argue in my book about lynching “On The Courthouse Lawn.” Reparations begins w/the full acknowledgment that these events actually happened. That recognition must become part of the physical landscape.
Ironically in the first chapter of On The Courthose Lawn I wrote about a visit I made to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Germany, and what we can learn about mass violence from the physical landscape that surrounds sites of remembrance. 
The entire physical landscape of this country has a story to tell about slavery, segregation, lynching, forced removals, internment. We have only begun to acknowledge this history sitting in plain view. W/o sites of remembrance, amnesia & denial reclaims the physical space.
Our conversation about reparations must be broad enough to include this as well.
