History You Need to Understand
Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Civil Rights Institute is probably the most important place to visit in Birmingham. It is a nonprofit, privately and publicly funded museum to the civil rights movement as it unfolded, principally in Birmingham in the 1950s through 1960s. The exhibits include a short introducting movie, models of segregated facilities, detailed memorabilia of the segregaged South, and then a slow walk through a mixture of documents, photographs, recorded voices, television images, and even the bombed out front end of a bus from the Freedom Riders. Every visit is engrossing and you will learn something more every time you come. On Sundays, incidentally, a number of veterans of the Struggle are at the museum just to talk with visitors.