Legacy Reimagined, History Activated
The Legacy Experience Reopening
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Mark Your Calendars
On Saturday, May 16, 2026, the National Civil Rights Museum opens the doors to its newly expanded and reimagined Legacy Experience, a sweeping, immersive journey through civil rights history from 1968 to the present day. Join us for a community day event and an invitation to witness, reflect, and be moved.
Legacy Community Opening Celebration
The day will be filled with community, culture, and commemoration. From 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., the Legacy Building and Founders Park will come alive with a ribbon-cutting ceremony, live music, storytelling, children’s activities, and more. All are welcome to celebrate alongside the Museum and the community that has sustained its mission for 35 years.
35 Years of Preserving History and Activating It
This milestone reopening marks the centerpiece of the Museum’s Legacy Year, honoring three and a half decades of courageous work at the intersection of memory and action. As Museum President Dr. Russ Wigginton reminds us: “As we mark 35 years, we are not only preserving history, we are activating it.” The Legacy Experience embodies that promise, connecting the sacrifices of the past to the movements shaping our future.
Program details and full event information coming soon. Stay tuned.
The Legacy Experience Renovation
When the National Civil Rights Museum’s Legacy Building reopens, it will usher visitors into an urgent and immersive journey through the unfinished business of civil rights. What once served as the Lorraine Motel’s opposite façade now becomes the movement’s modern-day front line, deeply rooted in the final chapter of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s mission laid out in his 1967 book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Through five powerful thematic galleries, poverty, education, housing, gender equity, and nonviolence, visitors are invited to explore the structural inequalities Dr. King warned of and how those injustices still shape American life today.
What sets this renovation apart is its rich and timely examination of civil and human rights movements since Dr. King’s assassination. The exhibitions delve into pivotal moments and strategies that shaped the decades following 1968, including the rise and resonance of the Poor People’s Campaign both then and now. A dedicated gallery explores the investigations into King’s assassination, including newly uncovered documents and longstanding conspiracy theories that continue to raise critical questions about justice and accountability.
A movement timeline gallery charts the evolution of civil rights activism from the 1970s through today. The Freedom Award honoree exhibit celebrates individuals who’ve made lasting contributions to social justice. Visitors will also encounter powerful multimedia narratives from changemakers on community organizing and policy change.
Digital touchscreen surveys prompt visitors to weigh in on present-day strategies and what solidarity looks like in their communities. The museum introduces new flexible gallery and classroom spaces for rapid-response exhibitions that react to today’s unfolding events, ensuring The Legacy experience remains relevant and resonant in real time.
From legacy to liberation, our future we build together.
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 offers.
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.
The new Founders Park is the perfect symbol of how we choose openness and 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.