A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to visit Atlanta’s Center for Civil and Human Rights as a team building outing with my Coke peers. It was a humbling and moving experience that I greatly recommend to both locals and visitors.
The museum is highly interactive and so well done. You truly get a feel of what life felt like in our country during the civil rights movement.
There are period television sets throughout the museum that are showing live news coverage and feeds from some of the more notable (and horrific) events of the civil rights movement.
You will learn about many of the same events that were covered on the visit I made to Atlanta History Center a couple of years ago. One extremely moving one was the Freedom Ride….
But it was the sit-in at Lester Maddox’s Pickrick Restaurant that left many of my co-workers shaking and in tears. I do not exaggerate. Experiencing this at the Atlanta History Center last year was an incredibly moving experience and this one was different but equally as well done.
Having young children of my own, learning about the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing was particularly moving for me. The loss was overwhelming.
One of the saddest parts was learning about the tragic murder of Dr Martin Luther King. The photographs are just so incredibly sad. Really, the whole thing was.
I don’t want to dwell on the sad parts, because as you move through the floors of the museum, from the first to the second to the third, you become increasingly uplifted. You learn about the heroes and the fighters and people that knew their one voice would make a difference.
The entire experience is extremely moving and incredibly well done. I cannot wait to take John back really soon. He just learned about the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement and Reconstruction and the timing is perfect. I highly recommend this Atlanta experience!
Around Atlanta | Center for Civil and Human Rights
DIXIE DELIGHTS DELIVERED
I TRULY appreciate you for this post! My husband and I were able to go through this AMAZING museum two years ago when we visited Atlanta. The museum does a WONDERFUL job at educating, and it evokes many different emotions as one travels through the museum. It reminded me that our differences that should be celebrated are for many feared or hated. While at the same time, it was AMAZING to see how the museum showed how people of many different shades/backgrounds/faiths came together during a VERY ugly but at the same time a beautiful time (how it brought us together in many ways) in our history to help make things better for us all. Thank you for this post, and have a wonderful day!