The museum is housed in neighboringshotgun houses in Greensboro's Depot neighborhood, homes originally built for employees of a localcotton gin.[1][2][3][4] One of the houses, a three-room structure, was owned by the Burroughs family, who were local activists;Theresa Burroughs had been childhood friends withCoretta Scott King.[2][3] Martin Luther King Jr. used it as a safe house on March 21, 1968, while being hunted by theKu Klux Klan, shortly before his assassination.[1][3][5]
Displays include a pickup truck from which King gave a speech when local churches were afraid to allow him to speak in their buildings[1] andmugshots of local activists who were arrested in protests and marches during the civil rights era, including the Greensboro marches,Bloody Sunday, and the 1965march from Selma to Montgomery.[2][6][3] A desk made for a local landowner by one of the people he enslaved is held in its collection.[7]
In 2010,Auburn University'sRural Studio selected the museum as a project for architecture students. The buildings were renovated and their exteriors restored to their original style, and a covered gallery was built to connect them.[3] In 2018, it was one of 20 Alabama sites important to civil rights history to be placed on theWorld Monument Fund's watch list.[8]
