Every year, the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, bestows its prestigious Freedom Award upon individuals who have made significant contributions to the advancement of civil and human rights. In 2023, one of the distinguished honorees is none other than Stacey Abrams, a dedicated advocate for voting rights. Abrams has dedicated her life to […]
Category: Historical Feature
Go deep on the people, events, and turning points that shaped the civil rights movement, and connect them to the issues communities face now. Museum historians and staff examine figures like Emmett Till, Frederick Douglass, and the Freedom Riders, alongside present-day questions from police violence to the fight for LGBTQIA+ rights. Every piece ties documented history to why it still matters.
A Demonstration that Ignited Change: 60 Years After the 1963 March on Washington
“We cannot walk alone. And as we walk, we must make the pledge that we shall always march ahead. We cannot turn back.” ? Martin Luther King Jr. Sixty years ago, one of the “greatest demonstrations for freedom in the history of this country” took place on the Washington, DC Mall, according to Dr. Martin Luther […]
Stop Asian Hate
America’s hate problem persists. We know that Blacks have been victims of hate crimes in pretty much every category since the FBI started gathering data more than 20 years ago. We can go back further, 400+ years, when Africans were enslaved and brought to America. This nation has experienced extreme hate, a sick culture of […]
Farewell Terri
By Herb Hilliard Chair, Museum Board of Directors Terri Lee Freeman answered the call to lead the National Civil Rights Museum in November 2014. She arrived just a few months after the museum’s most expansive renovation. She came to the museum understanding the huge investment and brought with her a new perspective on what the museum […]
Dear White People
I write this letter today because I am both exhausted and frustrated. I can only imagine what Dr. King was feeling when he wrote his Letter from a Birmingham Jail. I’m angry at a nation that I love but doesn’t seem to love me back. Recently, we got a first-hand look at the two justice […]
Freedom and Liberation
“Freedom has never been free.” – Medgar Evers “We who believe in freedom cannot rest”– Ella Baker “I am not free while any woman is unfree, even when her shackles are very different from my own.And I am not free as long as one person of Color remains chained.Nor is anyone of you.” -Audre Lorde This week’s theme […]
Bayard Rustin: Strategist, Organizer, Unifier
As he approached the podium, Bayard Rustin was determined and elated. He expected about 100,000 marchers to converge at the Washington Monument on August 28, 1963. To his delight, approximately 250,000 people cheered as he listed the demands of the march. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom began after eight weeks of recruiting […]
The Very Real Pain of Racism
By Terri Lee Freeman, Museum President I have always looked at the glass as half full as opposed to empty. But even so, I consider myself more of a pragmatist than an optimist. As an African American woman, I’ve experienced how ugly the world can be. I’ve experienced both blatant and more insidious racism. I’ve […]
Black America Gets Pneumonia
Just as 9/11 defined the new millennium, the novel coronavirus will certainly be the story of the decade. The global pandemic has caused a devastating public health crisis, initiated a global economic disaster, and in the United States, pulled back the curtain on the deep-rooted racial inequities that persist. Just as COVID-19 is a deadly virus, so […]
Unsung Freedom Riders, Part II
Over the summer of 1961, 329 people from across the country, both black and white, boarded buses and headed south. The Freedom Rides set out to test federal law banning segregation in bus and train terminals across the South. After facing violence in Alabama, Jackson, Mississippi became the end of the line. From May to […]
400 Years Later. The Historical Truth.
Sometime around August 20, 1619 (the exact date is not known), a ship arrived on the shores of Point Comfort, Virginia with between 20 and 30 Africans…and thus the Inter-Atlantic theft and enslavement of African people began. Thanks to the 1619 Project, an initiative of the New York Times, spearheaded by Nikole Hannah Jones, a […]
More #StolenLives
by Terri Lee Freeman President, National Civil Rights Museum In the span of 24 hours America was shaken by the report of two mass shootings resulting in the deaths of 31 people – 22 killed at a WalMart in El Paso, TX and 9 killed in Dayton, OH in an entertainment district. Not unlike most […]