Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a large interpretive museum and research center in Birmingham, Alabama that depicts the struggles of the American Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The Institute is located in the Civil Rights District, which includes the historic 16th Street Baptist Church, Kelly Ingram Park, Fourth Avenue Business District, and the Alabama Jazz Hall of Fame located in the Carver Theatre. The Institute opened in November 1992, and had more than 25,000 visitors during its first week.
The Institute showcases a walking journey through the "living institution", which displays the lessons of the past as a positive way to chart new directions for the future. The permanent exhibitions are a self-directed journey through Birmingham's contributions to the Civil Rights Movement and human rights struggles. Multimedia exhibitions focus on the history of African-American life and the struggle for civil rights. The Oral History Project, one of the museum's multimedia exhibits, documents Birmingham's role in the Civil Rights Movement through the voices of movement participants. The museum is an affiliate in the Smithsonian Affiliations program. Through this program the museum can acquire long-term loans and is currently hosting the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service exhibition "Let Your Motto Be resistance."
The archives of the Institute serve as a national resource for educators and researchers. They are a repository for the collection and preservation of civil rights documents and artifacts. The archival information system is computer-linked to the Birmingham Public Library and is a vital component of the Archives Division.
The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is also a community resource for meetings, seminars and workshops. A Community Meeting Room is available to local organizations.
The museum is a member of the North American Reciprocal Museums program.
Famous quotes containing the words civil, rights and/or institute:
“A mechanism of some kind stands between us and almost every act of our lives.”
—Sarah Patton Boyle, U.S. civil rights activist and author. The Desegregated Heart, part 3, ch. 2 (1962)
“A hundred things are done today in the divine name of Youth, that if they showed their true colours would be seen by rights to belong rather to old age.”
—Wyndham Lewis (1882–1957)
“Whenever any form of government shall become destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, & to institute new government, laying it’s foundation on such principles & organising it’s powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety & happiness.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)