Beyond History: Newly redesigned Civil Rights Memorial Center
remembers the past, challenges visitors to continue the struggle
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Esther Schrader | Read the full piece here
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Friend,
The images flow across the screen, black-and-white testament to the
ravages and triumphs of the civil rights era seared into our
collective memory alongside combustible, contemporary scenes of mass
protests against the killings of Black people cut down by racist
violence.
At the newly redesigned Civil Rights Memorial Center
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(CRMC) in Montgomery, Alabama, the powerful scenes splash over walls,
fill exhibits and illuminate memorials to the past while affirmatively
refusing to flinch from the challenges of our current moment.
The CRMC, built and maintained by the Southern Poverty Law Center,
reopened this week, two days before the anniversary of Martin Luther
King Jr.'s birth on Jan. 15, 1929. The reopening followed a
21-month closure due to the redesign and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Conceived prior to the pandemic and given added weight and power as
the Black Lives Matter movement ricocheted across the country, the
renovated CRMC depicts the civil rights movement not as history but as
continuum, weaving together the United States' history of racism
with the ongoing activism in pursuit of equity. Like the work of the
SPLC itself, it challenges visitors to be catalysts for justice.
"The reopening of the CRMC comes precisely at the right moment
as our country grapples with efforts to prevent the teaching of an
honest history about race and racism in our schools," said
Margaret Huang, president and CEO of the SPLC. "The CRMC and
museums across the country can help fill those gaps. I'm
thrilled that the CRMC is reopening to once again help visitors
understand the truth about the history of civil rights advocacy in
this country."
Learning has been the point of the CRMC since it opened in 2005 less
than a block from the historic church
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where King served as pastor during the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Its
new, modernized exhibits reflect the SPLC's commitment to
lifting up the work of activist and community organizers on the front
lines of the fight for racial justice today.
From its beginning, the CRMC has served as an interpretive center for
the Civil Rights Memorial, which was dedicated in 1989 and created by
Vietnam Veterans Memorial designer Maya Lin
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. Its exhibits have chronicled the civil rights era of the 1950s and
1960s, along with the lives of the civil rights-era martyrs whose
names are engraved on the Memorial's circular, black granite
table.
READ MORE
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
The SPLC is a catalyst for racial justice in the South and beyond,
working in partnership with communities to dismantle white supremacy,
strengthen intersectional movements, and advance the human rights of
all people.
Friend, will you make a gift to help the SPLC fight for
justice and equity in courts and combat white supremacy?
DONATE
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