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 […]
Tag: The Movement
Read about the people and campaigns that built the civil rights movement, from the Freedom Riders to the March on Washington. These posts cover the organizers, marches, and turning points that changed the country. Each one connects a documented event to the struggle that continues now.
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 Revolution Will Not Be Televised
The National Civil Rights Museum Celebrates Black Music Month Music has been intrinsically linked with the Civil Rights Movement and African American history. Our celebration of Black Music Month began as a way to connect with you during this pandemic. However, as the current moment has unfolded, it has become a way for us to […]
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 […]
Gradual Matriculation: Brown vs. Board of Education
White columns guide you when entering the Brown vs Board of Education exhibition. On the right are pews and a short video recapping the world-changing U.S. Supreme Court decision on May 17, 1954, 66 years ago this week. For 89 years, schools across the South were racially segregated and drastically different. Despite a court order […]
We Were Prepared to Die: Freedom Riders
Fifty-nine years ago, the Freedom Rides of 1961 entered the state of Alabama. Potential violence awaited in Anniston and Birmingham. Below, the backstory of how the Freedom Rides began and how one of the most pivotal protests in the Civil Rights Movement came about. While we know the names of notable activists like James Lawson […]
The Children Shall Lead Them: Birmingham 1963
As you move through the galleries of the National Civil Rights Museum, you follow a timeline of struggle and strength. The sounds of freedom songs trail behind you as you step into Birmingham, Alabama – a town that became known as “Bombingham” and the center of the Civil Rights Movement. On a busy day, you […]
VOTER SUPPRESSION IS VOTER SUPPRESSION
By Terri Lee Freeman, National Civil Rights Museum President Lyndon Baines Johnson signed into law the Voting Rights Acts of 1965 with the intent of eliminating the legal barriers imposed at the state and local levels to prevent African Americans from exercising their legal right to vote as stated in the 15th Amendment. That amendment […]
Museum Statement on the Passing of Hugh Masekela and Wyatt Tee Walker
January 23, 2018 will go down in civil rights history as a sad day. Two of the icons of the 20th century civil rights movement made their transition – Ramapolo Hugh Masekela and Rev. Wyatt Tee Walker. Hugh Masekela was a renowned South African composer. In a career spanning more than five decades, Masekela […]
TWENTYSEVENTEEN
By Terri Lee Freeman, Museum President 2017 has arrived. How I wish I could list the incredible accomplishments that took place in 2016 to provide equitable access to opportunity, move justice forward, and ensure freedom. But frankly, I honestly believe 2016 was one of the most challenging years we’ve experienced in quite some time. Global […]
Self-Destruction: A Case Study of Violence and Hip Hop
by Ryan M. Jones Museum Educator In March 2016, the National Civil Rights Museum opened a controversial exhibition entitled Kin Killin’ Kin. Artist James Pate has created images comparing Black-on-Black violence to the history of terrorism by the Ku Klux Klan. The graphics show African American youth murdering each […]