A civil rights museum in Atlanta expanded recently and now includes the era of reconstruction that followed the Civil War and ultimately led to segregationist Jim Crow Laws in the South.
AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Museums across the country are under pressure to comply with President Trump’s executive order to remove what his administration calls race-centered ideology. The National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta, the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr., is doubling down. It recently expanded its exhibit space to include the era of Reconstruction following the Civil War. Julien Virgin from member station WABE paid a visit.
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JULIEN VIRGIN, BYLINE: Sounds of struggle, triumph and the voices of kids echo through the National Center of Civil and Human Rights in downtown Atlanta.
JULIANNE WORTHEM: Miss Worthem’s group right here.
VIRGIN: Fourth-grade math teacher Julianne Worthem is here with 60 elementary students from a local school.
WORTHEM: This is their history. It gets them to reflect on who they are and what legacy they can leave as African American students.
VIRGIN: From the lunch counter sit-ins to the march on Washington, students walk through immersive recreations of Civil Rights moments from the early 20th century in the segregated South through the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr.
WORTHEM: I just think this is a momentous moment for our students to get exposure, to see where they come from, so that we won’t repeat the past.
VIRGIN: Recently, the center added on to its exhibit space. Now, instead of beginning in the 20th century, the history lesson starts in the 1860s Reconstruction era, following the end of the Civil War.
KAMA PIERCE: That hundred-year period really puts things in context in American history.
VIRGIN: Chief program officer Kama Pierce is in charge of the new exhibit “Broken Promises: The Legacy Of The Reconstruction Era.” She says while laws changed after slavery, the culture did not, and within a few years, Jim Crow segregation laws took hold. The exhibit shows images of racial violence, maps of lynchings and massacres of Wilmington, Atlanta and Tulsa.
PIERCE: That’s why this space is so important ’cause how do you understand the struggles, even now or during the Civil Rights Movement, if you don’t understand, you know, the treatment of these people back then?
VIRGIN: From the Smithsonian Institution to national parks, many places around the country are under pressure to cut so-called divisive concepts out of how they represent American history. But Pierce is not deterred. She says the center gets a limited amount of federal funds and relies mostly on corporate foundation and individual contributions.
PIERCE: We cannot go with the wave of what’s happening outside our doors. We just have to tell the truth of history.
VIRGIN: And she says they welcome the weight of the responsibility to keep telling what she says is the full American story.
For NPR News, I’m Julien Virgin in Atlanta.
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