National Civil Rights Museum's new phase will tell the post-Martin Luther King Jr. story
Chief architect Juan Self explains a planned section of Founders Park during a groundbreaking ceremony for the renovation of the National Civil Rights Museum's Legacy Building and Founders Park on Tuesday, May 16, 2023, in Memphis.
From Commercial Appeal:
Located across the street from the primary campus of the National Civil Rights Museum, the renovated "Legacy Building" will function in part as almost a sequel to the main building by telling the stories of the human rights and social justice warriors who continued the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in the wake of the civil rights icon's assassination, officials said Tuesday.
"Who are the brave ones who picked up the torch and soldiered on?" asked Tiffany L. Graham, the museum's chief marketing and development director. The Legacy Building will answer that question, in hopes of motivating "the next generation of catalysts who will inspire positive social change."
Graham's remarks came during a Tuesday press conference that offered an update on the museum's "Become the Dream" $55 million capital campaign, which to date has raised $34 million to redesign and renovate the three-story Legacy Building — formerly the South Main boarding house from which James Earl Ray shot King — and its adjacent Founders Park, which connects Main to Mulberry, the street that runs alongside the front of the National Civil Rights Museum and the preserved Lorraine Motel balcony where King was killed.