The global pandemic is just one major news story happening right now – another is the newly elevated fight for civil rights in the wake of a number of killings of black men by law enforcement officers.
And even though there’s a pandemic, leaders at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum want to continue to get out the museum’s message. The facility has been revamped in accordance with the COVID-19 guidelines and now museum leaders are anxious to begin once again to fulfill the museum’s purpose.
“In the months since the International Civil Rights Center & Museum has been required to close access to visitors because of the on-going public health crisis,” stated a Friday, Sept 4 press release, “a small group of full-time staff members has worked to complete projects re-casting the Museum’s operations so that we can continue to educate the public about what we call ‘American’s Best Story.’ That is to say, the narrative of the Civil Rights Movement, along with the ideas and strategy that inspired it.”
On Saturday, Sept. 5 and on Labor Day this year –– Monday, Sept. 7 – the Museum debuted two versions of its new on-line filmed tour, “The Battlegrounds of the Struggle for Civil Rights.” The two versions of the filmed tour focus on the widely acclaimed Permanent Exhibit at the museum.
These tours are provided by two of the museums most accomplished officials, and the filmed tours serve as the first phase of a series of different formats that will be offered by the civil rights museum, on-line and on-site, when it resumes full operations, hopefully later this year.
Museum officials say the message of racial equality is as important now as ever.
“If ever there was a time since the 1960s, when the lessons of that earlier civil rights struggle for the redemption of this nation’s soul were most relevant, it is today,” the press release stated. “As a pivotal site of that struggle, of course, the landmark F.W. Woolworth’s here in Greensboro is a testament to the potential success of well-planned and persistent non-violent direction on behalf of social justice reform.”
