The Greensboro International Civil Rights Museum (ICRCM) is in the process of gaining international recognition as a world heritage site from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) to promote cultural heritage and dignity.
By gaining recognition ICRCM will be exposing the surrounding community to a more diverse and well rounded source of education on not only a local but a national level.
The museum is located in the F.W. Woolworth building where the Greensboro sit-ins took place during the US civil rights movement in the 1960s. When four African American North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College students sat down at a whites only diner counter in protest of the segregation taking place in the area.
These sit-ins lasted just over 5 months and had a large influence on the progress of the historical movement, eventually ending the process of racial segregation in all Woolsworth stores in the United States.
It wasn’t until 50 years later in 2010 that the Civil Rights Museum opened with the original seats and counter the four students sat at still preserved and blocked off as part of the exhibit.
ICRCM has also gone as far as to purchase the First Citizen National Bank next door, as an effort to preserve and expand the museum while also working in a collaborative fundraising campaign with the capital to pay for the necessary expenses that come with seeking this level of recognition.
John L. Swaine, CEO of ICRCM explains this process by expressing their desire to continue the expansion of the museum through the hire of new scholars and inclusion of new programs and exhibits to contribute to the museum’s impact on the community.
