MARTIN LUTHER KING was, at one time, considered an inadequate orator. In December 1950 a transcript from Crozier Theological Seminary records him receiving just a “C” in public speaking—although for actual sermon preparation he scored an “A”. This document is one of 13,000 relating to Dr King from the Morehouse College collection acquired for $22m for display at Atlanta’s new Centre for Civil and Human Rights.
Situated between strange neighbours—the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca Cola—the centre opened in late June as the first of its kind in America. The $82m needed to open the sloping brown structure was split evenly between private and public donors. As Doug Shipman, the CEO, explains, the centre aims to document the racial upheaval of the 1960s, and King’s role within it, to those not yet born at the time. It also tries to fit that story within an international context—as becomes clear on the building’s top floor where issues of the moment are explored.
Here in particular, the impact of the exhibits rests on their immediate relevance. A huge map framed with news updates on activism and abuse around the world glows at one end of the room. Wall displays detailing the crimes of serving dictators are actually giant stickers that can shift quickly should Bashar Assad or Kim Jong Un fall. Mirrors are really video screens showing footage of Americans explaining what it’s like to be told to remove a headscarf at work, or how to deal with homosexual taunts.
Such displays mean the Centre will intrigue a generation accustomed to the immediacy of information smartphones provide. Others prompt a physical response impossible to trigger elsewhere. For example, after passing through the first room of the black-walled civil rights exhibition, near the Centre’s entrance, visitors can sit at a 1960s-style lunch counter. Headphones play what activists protesting segregation might have heard in such places: loud voices, threats, the groans of those being beaten for attending the sit-in. The chair on which you sit suddenly jerks as if blows had found your back; after one minute and nine seconds your correspondent wanted no more.
The hallowed quiet of the room displaying King’s documents, on the bottom floor of the centre, is in bold contrast with the darkness of the civil rights exhibit. Scrawled to-do lists lie alongside drafts of famous sermons, mixing impressions of him as both a man and an activist. One item on a list written from Selma Jail in February 1965 reads: "make personal call to President Johnson".
The vitality of the new centre should make it an asset to Atlanta. To thrive institutions can no longer merely proffer facts to their visitors—Wikipedia can do that both more quickly and cheaply—but must also offer relevant experiences, as the centre's exhibits do. But the site needs to attract visitors for their own sake, rather than just drawing company delegates who desire to be seen holding meetings in its many events spaces (Coca Cola and CNN are sniffing around). Its displays must remain meaningful, and its technology up-to-date, so that it does not merely varnish the efforts of the activists it celebrates.
