The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is a time capsule, a think-tank and maybe even a town square. It’s a place, according to Founding President and Chair Emerita Odessa Woolfolk, where the struggles of the Civil Rights era inspire a new generation to reach for a brighter tomorrow.

BCRI has welcomed more than 2 million visitors, including then-Senator Barack Obama, former President Jimmy Carter and legendary entertainer Bill Cosby, since it opened in 1992. Hosts of boys and girls, young men and women from schools across the nation are included in that number as well, making BCRI the Alabama Attraction of the Year in 2009.

Repeat visitors are frequent, especially since the recent renovation of the permanent collection to expand the storyline of Civil Rights’ history and to upgrade interactive technology in the permanent galleries. 

Parts of the collection also travel to reach visitors in far away places, providing a hint of what awaits them at BCRI. A bench and key from the Birmingham jail cell occupied by Dr. Martin Luther King  Jr. joined “America I Am: The African-American Imprint,” a four-year touring museum exhibition developed in partnership with radio personality Tavis Smiley.

The quality of the collection continues to win recognition for BCRI, which in 2005 became one of only six museums in Alabama and 774 in the nation to be accredited by the American Association of Museums.  In 2007, BCRI was invited to apply for affiliate designation by the Smithsonian Institution, a distinction shared by only two other Alabama museums and  fewer than 160 museums nationwide.

The awards continue for BCRI, which has twice won a National Medal for Museum and Library Service and received the Coming Up Taller Award in 2006 for an after-school arts enrichment program serving middle school students.

Programs for youth do more than win awards. They inspire learning and create leaders, like members of the Legacy Youth Leadership program who are now serving as BCRI’s first Teen Docents. 

“We are proud of the fact that the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is living up to its name and really serving as a place of action and a place where people can discuss common concerns,” said Dr. Lawrence J. Pijeaux Jr., president and CEO of BCRI. “The story we tell here gives visitors an idea of the powerful impact that everyday people can have when they work together – an impact that stretches beyond Birmingham to have an impact on race relations worldwide.”

Oral history is another important component of BCRI, with a growing collection of almost 500 first-hand accounts from leaders and followers in the Civil Rights Movement. On computers in the Richard Arrington Jr. Resource Gallery, visitors can access the collection.  The BCRI website shares a portion of the archives with a global audience, including interviews about civil and human rights from local, national and international perspectives.

On line and face to face, BCRI plays an important role as one of the nation’s top heritage-tourism sites and an important way that Birmingham claims its history as one of the stepping stones to a brighter future for everyone.

BCRI is located at 520 16th Street North in downtown Birmingham. A new special exhibit, titled “381 Days: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott,” opened January 30. Click here to go to the BCRI website or call 328-9696 for more information.