National Voting Rights
Museum and Institute
1012 Water Avenue, P.O. Box 2516
Selma, Alabama 36702-2516
(334) 418-0800
But the battle for voting rights and human dignity did not begin or start on that bridge March 7, 1965. The struggle began with the birth of our nation. From the beginning African Americans, white women and others were excluded from the table of democracy. When the Bill of Rights and Constitution were conceived, they were excluded from the letter of the law, but, the spirit and struggle for democracy remained strong.
That struggle continues today through efforts to remove all barriers to voting. Yet there is no one place where the past and present struggles and future possibilities can be studied, felt and remembered. The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute offers America and the world the opportunity to learn the lessons of the past to assure we will not make the same mistakes in the 21st century and beyond. The Museum will also showcase the gains that came each time the door of democracy opened to the locked out. The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute is a look back, but also a vision and reminder of what America can and will be.
The Museum was founded and organized by grassroots people with little money but with a tremendous vision and commitment.
Annual Bridge Crossing Jubilee
An outdoor festival held on the first weekend in March. This festival is an exciting adventure into the past and into Selma's future possibilities. The music, arts, exhibits, dancing and storytelling of Jubilee capture the spirit and lives of this historical time.
Other Programming
Living History Project
Mountain Top Jubilee Tours
Weekly Story Telling
Exhibits of Personal Collections
Community Forums
Film Festivals
Bed & Board
The Exhibits Include:
The Memorial Room
| The Selma Room
| The Reconstruction Room
| Footsteps to Freedom
| The Suffrage Room
| Fruits of the Labor
| Freedom's Children
| The "I Was There Wall"
| The Legal Guardians Room
| The Mississippi Room
|
The founders of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute envisioned a space that captured the essence of struggles to empower America's people through the ballot box. Most of the founders were participants or supporters to the Voting Rights Movement of the 60s which culminated in Selma, Alabama on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. There, people were brutally attacked by officers of the law as they marched to protest the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson and to demand the right to vote. Following this tragic event and the monumental Selma to Montgomery march, the Voting Rights Act was passed. "My country tis of thee, sweet land of liberty" gained new meaning for millions of black, brown and red people who had been America's stepchildren. It is, therefore, fitting and proper that the National Voting Rights Museum be located in Selma, Alabama near the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the corner stone of the contemporary struggles for voting and human dignity.
|
Home 
