Founders Park Extends the Mission of the Museum Beyond Its Walls

There’s a quiet power in standing in a place where history happened. And in Memphis, there are few spaces more sacred than the ground outside the National Civil Rights Museum. For decades, visitors have stood outside the Lorraine Motel, eyes fixed on the balcony where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. last stood. But what if that moment—of pause, of reverence, of reckoning—could become a longer conversation? What if that space could expand into something more living, more communal, more purposeful?

That’s what BlueCross Healthy Places at Founders Park will offer when it reopens Fall 2025.

Thanks to BlueCross BlueShield of Tennessee Foundation, BlueCross Healthy Places at Founders Park and the Legacy Terrace serve as spaces for honoring the legacy of civil rights leaders and fostering community reflection. This enhanced outdoor area will offer enlarged spaces, additional seating, audio and staging capabilities, and landscaped reflection areas. The park will also serve as a venue for large tours, school groups, and signature events.  These spaces are designed to be accessible, inclusive hubs for dialogue, education, and connection and to invite visitors to recommit to the principles of equity, justice, and social change.

As we prepare to welcome visitors into the new Founders Park, we choose something meaningful. We choose openness. We choose belonging. We choose the hard work of togetherness over the easy retreat of separation.

Dr. King once asked us to decide between chaos and community. We choose COMMUNITY over chaos.