The Sum of Its Parts

Abstract

Over 30 countries have created truth commissions to investigate human rights abuses and to make recommendations about addressing those abuses. Most of them have been in countries transitioning from authoritarian governments to democracies. Only one truth commission has been successfully implemented in the United States, in Greensboro, North Carolina, and it faced great hurdles. This article will address attempts to create a truth and reconciliation commission in the state of Mississippi and the lessons learned for establishing a truth commission within a democratic context. It will argue that, for the particular historical context of the United States, truth commissions must be deconstructed to their component parts and implemented as simultaneous tools in a truth process tool kit. In short, I argue that truth processes must be defined for each country’s sociopolitical context and may include “rituals of atonement,” changing the geography of memory with historical tours and markers, the creation and implementation of school curriculum and community development, changing the narratives of communities known for violence, and creating partnerships of advocacy and policy groups to seek new institutional reforms that undo the structures of oppression and replace them with equitable ones.