Volume 2, No. 2 (Winter 1998) -- Black History Month Issue

Two introductory exhibitions of the National Civil Rights Museum, Unremitting Struggle and Strategies for Change, trace the history of the black freedom movement in the United States. The exhibits begin in 1619, the year the North American slave trade began in full and conclude in 1954, the year of the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka decision. The activities and participants in the abolition/slavery and black rights debates are placed on a timeline in logical historic context.

Mounted on opposite sides of the same gallery, the Brown v. Topeka Board of Education and Little Rock exhibitions illustrate how important the battle for quality education was to the civil rights movement. Brown v. Topeka is complete with actual film footage depicting the disparity between institutions, transportation, and curricula of black children and white children living within as little as a three-mile radius of each other. Included are images of the black and white dolls used by Dr. Kenneth Clark in conducting tests with school children to determine their preference in terms of color — their choice of the white doll over the black one spoke volumes and helped move the Supreme Court to strike down the ‘separate but equal' law that had held a choke-hold on American society for 57 years.

The NAACP and black Americans everywhere triumphed with the Supreme Court decision overturning the "separate but equal" language of Plessy v. Ferguson, but the decision did not provide for the means to implement the new desegregation law. Three years later, Central High School in Little Rock was the proving ground.

The 1950s and 60s were a time when African Americans in the South, and their allies from across the country, rose up in democratic assertion. Armed with the gifts of vision, passion, and truth, they resisted the forces of racism and segregation, and claimed long-denied fundamental rights and freedoms.

The series of black protests that began with the Montgomery bus boycott of 1955-56 became the most significant social movement for the expansion of American democracy in the latter half of this century. The National Civil Rights Museum remembers and shares stories of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the thousands of other heralded and anonymous heroes in the movement.

It is when visitors reach the Montgomery bus boycott exhibition that the defining characteristics of the civil rights movement start to unfold. Prior to Montgomery, pre-existing national civil rights organizations like the NAACP and the Urban League had set the tone for black Americans' quest for freedom. The Montgomery bus boycott served as the model for subsequent black protest movements in other cities in the South. It also set the stage for belief within the black community and allowed as-yet-untested strengths to find expression.

Sit-ins were first staged in 1960 by four young black college students in Greensboro, North Carolina. The sit-ins protested the separate but equal policies widely practiced in restaurants, theaters, libraries, parks, and churches across the South. Sitting at the exhibit's lunch counter is a raw experience for visitors. On screen, white customers hurl verbal and physical assaults on young blacks sitting at a luncheon counter. They quietly absorb the force of these attacks. News interviews with black and whites reveal differing views. Visitors are reminded that, on the most basic level, common people wanted only to do an everyday common thing — what could be more human or more American?

An interracial student initiative, the Freedom Rides of 1961, owed their existence to the groundbreaking efforts of previous desegregation protests. Buses filled with black and white volunteers departed from desegregated terminals like Washington, DC. and attempted to ride through the segregated south. Outbreaks of violence, arrests, beatings and, finally, a bus engulfed in flames were the first results of their efforts. The burned-out bus in this exhibition is a graphic illustration of what the Freedom Riders endured.

At the all-white University of Mississippi, also known as Ole Miss, army veteran and native Mississippian James Meredith pushed the movement farther when he decided to enroll at the institution. Meredith succeeded at enrolling at Ole Miss in 1962, but only after intervention from President John F. Kennedy and federal marshals. Visitors can pick up a telephone and hear the taped conversation between Kennedy and Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett that resulted in the deployment of federal troops.

In the Project "C: Birmingham" exhibit, visitors witness the struggle, re-engaged and intensified. Visitors can see images of children blasted by high-power water hoses and clothes and flesh slashed by snarling German shepherds. These powerful images are recreated in a ten-foot tall video surround that replicates a Birmingham street.

With the March on Washington, participants stand before a recreated Lincoln Monument to hear Mahalia Jackson, Marian Anderson, Dr. King, Roy Wilkins, and others publicly petition the government for positive action in the area of civil and human rights.

Coming into the final years of the exhibitions, one is seized by the enormity of what has transpired and of how long the struggle has endured. Mississippi Freedom Summer, the Selma, Alabama protests, James Meredith's March Against Fear, and Dr. King's attempts to host peaceful demonstrations in Chicago, Illinois.

Tours of the museum conclude with the only extant rooms of the old Lorraine Motel. Mahalia Jackson sings "Precious Lord," Dr. King's favorite hymn, as visitors are taken through the last days, and finally, the last minutes of the life of one of the twentieth century's great men.

The National Civil Rights Museum stands as a monument to Dr. King, yes, but also as a testament to the courage of people. The Museum provides a strong mirror that reflects the past achievements of this generation. It also opens a window revealing horizons that have yet to be explored.

The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, is built around the Lorraine Motel, site of the 1968 assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. It bears witness to one of this nation's most heroic epochs, the civil rights movement. The museum effort began as a grassroots call for support from local people. Contributions of money, both large and small amounts, were collected. Eventually, the project would see the organization of a board of directors or foundation and elicit the assistance of county and state funds to secure the property. It presently operates through the generous donations of local corporations, ticket booth and gift shop revenues, and project grants. We are concerned with the blending of history and hope to educate and inspire both present and future generations. Recognizing the need to continue the unfinished business of the struggle, the museum encourages visitors to examine their own lives and communities..

Excerpt of an article that first appeared in History News, Autumn 1996.

Image 3: Historic marker commemorating the Lorraine Motel.