The International Civil Rights Center and Museum is planning a massive expansion that’s going to take over the entire block in downtown Greensboro where the museum is located – and expansions like that don’t come cheap.
In fact, they cost millions and millions of dollars. And, on Thursday, July 14, at the Guilford County Board of Commissioners’ only scheduled July meeting, the board is scheduled to vote on whether to start helping to pay for that effort.
The outcome of the controversial move to give the museum. $200,000 of taxpayer money isn’t hard to predict: Chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners Skip Alston, who was a founder of the museum, leads a board majority of fellow Democrats. Also, in March at the board’s annual retreat at the Bur-Mil Park Clubhouse, the commissioners took a vote that put the wheels in motion for the board to start giving money to the museum.
Over time, the museum backers are hoping for a total of at least $2 million from Guilford County.
The civil rights museum on South Elm Street is buying the building next door, expanding its offerings and programs, and applying to become a World Heritage Site – an exclusive landmark designation from United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). That honor has only been given to two dozen other sites in the US, including Grand Canyon National Park, the Statue of Liberty and Great Smokey Mountains National Park.
The civil rights museum project is roughly estimated to cost between $25 million and $30 million and the museum is seeking money this year and in future years from the county, the City of Greensboro, the State of North Carolina, private donors and community improvement organizations.
Alston, since he’s so closely connected to the museum, did not take part in the Board of Commissioners’ discussion or vote in March and presumably he will not vote Thursday night either. A county staff note attached to the motion states, “When a governing board considers a contract with a non-profit agency, including the award of any funding, board members involved with that non-profit must recuse themselves from any deliberation and record their recusal with the Clerk to Board.”
Just the start of another round of handouts from us taxpayers. Before any of these governmental agencies agree to give this “non-profit” more money, lets see a full accounting of not only where the money comes from and how it is spent, but the actual number of people who visit the facility (do not count the busloads of school kids who are forced to come). If the use of the facility cannot pay its own way with money from admission, gifts and other donations, let it sink into oblivion. This is NOT a World Heritage Site. It is a bankroll for some specific people as it always has been.
I am a supporter of some city funding of the civil rights museum given the importance of the sit in movement to Greensboro history BUT I agree…it is NOT a World Heritage Site…to pursue that designation would just be tossing more money away with no real prospect of return. Leave the museum as it is, keep city funding assistance to a minimum and let it be.
What importance are you speaking of.
So this is where our higher property taxes go.
An absolute money pit: if admissions and private donations can’t cover expenses, it should be dissolved. For some reason the democrats in charge feel obligated to keep this boondoggle afloat. Smacks of an extreme case of “white guilt”
Racist organization.
An organization that has a passion for Greensboro’s significant contribution to the civil rights movement is racist? You have be a very hateful person to believe that….sure, you can argue that city funding is an overreach etc…but to call them racist is just hateful.
What importance are you speaking of. You are so right chris black people cant be racist just ask them.
I do not see this group contributing to the the civil war museums? Wasn’t the civil war for civil rights? It is also apart of history .
Still taking a leak into a worthless rathole.
Why vote that’s a forgone conclusion. If the commissioners cared about the Taxpayers that vote would be on the ballot not at the monthly meeting. Anyone of them voting yes for the money pit should be tarred and feathered. I’m starting a web page to publicly Shane them all just as they are doing to the SCOTUS.
Well we know this will be voted in because Alston has enough of the people on the board in his back pocket to get it passed.
NO!
So The Downtown MONEY PIT is getting more tax payer money to help buy a building that will be removed from the tax rolls of Greensboro and Guilford County. This is all happening while GSO & Guilford County have burdened the tax payers with the largest tax increase in history. When will the voters wake up and send these folks walking that look at the tax payer as a money tree. The so called museum should be torn down and replaced with a park since the tax payer has sunk millions of dollars into this scam. If Skip or Earl have their hand in it then it is crooked, somebody needs to follow the money!
The sound you hear is the fleecing of your pocket books.
The Woolworth sit-ins was an act of civil disobedience. Sit-ins were not new in 1960. This type of protest was used much earlier than the1960s. It seems to me for the museum to stay relevant, there has to be more than a one-trick pony. The one event that Woolworth Museum represents, sit-ins, occurred in other parts of the country as well.
The Civil Rights movement would have people believe that Blacks had no civil rights until the Civil Rights Movement. Prior to the 1960s Blacks and Whites were educated in segregated schools. It can be argued that Blacks received a better education then than they are currently receiving. There was a thriving Black business community in Greensboro up until and right after the Civil Rights movement. That was destroyed with urban renewal. Blacks could vote and although there may have been impediments, those impediments would not have changed the election outcome since the population of Greensboro at the time was overwhelmingly White. Blacks had access to courts and could sue. Blacks and Whites congregated in downtown and walked the same streets as Whites. It was a segregated time, but Blacks were not totally void of civil rights.
Why is there a need for expansion of the museum? It is merely a grandiose idea of Skip Alston that gives him purpose and power. The current museum represents one moment in time, February 1, 1960. Taxpayer money should not be going to the Woolworth Museum and certainly not to expansion.
Definitely a money pit. Someone should ask for an audit of where the money goes. ten years ago I wrote to the Mayor and all the Council that this was a money pit!
How the hell is eight feet of plywood and four stools worth the millions we’ve dumped into that place? Enough is enough!