Over the last decade or so, African-American Civil Rights/Historical Museums and Institutes have evolved from concept to reality. This evolvement has been so widespread that a number of career options are now available to college students interested in preserving the history and culture of African Americans. Traditional methods of presentation and preservation still work, but recent African-American museums and cultural institutes are sophisticated, high-tech industries. Construction of a modern, preservation facility requires building contractors, architects, mechanical and electrical engineers. The operation of a major museum requires an executive director (M.B.A., Ed.D.), historians, archivists, educators, curators, media personnel, Internet specialists, security specialists, accountants, clerical staff, gift shop operators, and a public relations liaison. Exhibits require audio-visual technicians, artists, computer graphics and design specialists, writers and educators. All play important roles in the successful display of permanent and traveling exhibitions. Although these careers are lucrative, they provide satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment far beyond mere monetary value because of their focus on finding and preserving a race of people. In other words, in the environment of an African-American Historical/Civil Rights Museum, these careers become lucrative spiritually. 
 
Primary examples of museums and institutes focusing on the Civil Rights Movement, 1956 through 1970, can be found in Birmingham, Memphis, Atlanta, and Selma, Ala. Examples of institutes that focus on African-American history and culture can be found in Detroit, Michigan and Wilberforce, Ohio. The focus of the latter is the connection between the antebellum anti-slavery effort and the Northern connection to the Civil Rights Movement of the mid-20th century. Some museums are highly specialized, focusing on a single aspect or on a single person. The Amistad Research Center has all of the original documents related to the revolt on the Amistad. Debbie Allen researched the Amistad collection for the movie Amistad. Students interested in the origins of HBCUs Berea College, Fisk University, Atlanta University, Hampton University, Talladega College, Tougaloo College, and Dillard University must research the papers of the American Missionary Association that chartered them between 1866 and 1869. The original documents are housed at the Amistad Center in New Orleans. The Arna Bontemps Museum in Alexandria, La., has documents focusing on Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps. The basement of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Montgomery, Ala., has art related to the Movement in Montgomery and to Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr.'s pastorship there. Although each of these institutions has its unique local variations on a common theme, they nonetheless share the common theme of defining the major struggle of African Americans for human rights in the United States through African-American eyes. 

There are a number of reasons for the widespread development of African-American Civil Rights/Historical Museums and Institutes. The primary reason can be tied to the continuing struggle of African Americans to define their history and their contributions to the world. The denigration of people of African descent has been one of the consistent themes of Western propaganda (particularly in the United States where the ability to manipulate the mind through the use of audio-visual media has developed into an art form). African-American Civil Rights/Historical Museums have arisen as vehicles to extol the dignity of the quest for human rights by people of African-American descent. In a sense, museums of this type are natural responses of a people whose historical relevance has been minimized and marginalized, at the very least, and outright denied as a matter of course by the dominant society. A sense of pride in a glorious past full of perseverance, hard work, self-sacrifice, and dedication toward the struggle for human freedom and equality is a legacy of which anyone would be proud, if one were aware of it. This heightened awareness, all too often neglected in the educational system of the United States on all levels, is the mission of African-American Historical/Civil Rights Museums. They harken to the African concept of Sankofa, which means go back and fetch it. 

There are a number of other factors contributing to the growth of these museums. Because most of them are concerned with the relatively recent past, there is a ready availability of physical artifacts. Primary documents of influential individuals, diaries, public records, photographs, personal effects and so forth are part of the heritage contained within sources accessible to museums through families within the community as well as public avenues such as public and private libraries and church records. Primary human sources, i.e., those who lived through the period in question, contain a wealth of information with nuances normally not captured from secondary or tertiary sources. With the use of video and audio taping, museums are now able to develop archives of original data for research and education for generations to come. One of the most important historical aspects of The Birmingham Civil Rights Institute is the registry of Foot Soldiers, consisting of people who identify themselves and give narratives of their participation in the events documented by the Institute. Also, because the Civil Rights era was well documented by the mass media through film, phonograph records, tape, and print, their use in the structuring and development of both permanent and temporary exhibits make them poignant for present and future generations oriented toward audio-visual media. 

The availability of funding from various sources private, federal, state, and local is a significant factor as well. Corporations, local and state, and federally-funded foundations, private benefactors, large and small businesses, and individual members are all sources. Additionally, political support from inside and outside the African-American community, and African-American legislators and mayors have provided the political will necessary to see the development through to fruition. Because many of those presently in political power were involved in the struggle or intimately aware through information derived from the experiences of their parents, there is a personal-spiritual stake beyond mere self-interest motivating these prime factors. Now that Houston has an African-American mayor, Lee Brown, we predict that the next major African-American cultural center will arise in Houston. 

The benefits to the community that has an African-American Historical/Civil Rights Museum are numerous. The accurate documentation of an era of great socio -political change in the major nation of the 20th century is an important endeavor in and of itself: it takes on added significance because this marks the first time African Americans have taken the lead in defining their own history. This Afrocentric perspective serves to give a more balanced portrayal of events, since those from all levels of social, political and economic status are represented: the Civil Rights movement was a movement whose strength was maintained by the spiritual stamina of grassroots African-American people. The African-American Historical/Civil Rights Museum becomes a significant resource for the academic community on all levels from kindergarten to doctoral by providing year-round educational programming and archives. It serves to unite the African-American community by providing a concrete physical example of the positive, coordinated results and concerted effort of African-American people. By placing African-American people at the center of their own struggle, the African-American Historical/Civil Rights Museum impels other ethnic groups to begin to understand African-American people and their contributions to this society. And with increased understanding comes respect, a necessary component for a society of diverse people to come together to overcome the short- sightedness of the Western world's racist past. The accurate portrayal of a major epoch in the transformation of the United States of America, the major political power of the 20th century, toward a more just society is a great responsibility. The African-American museum becomes a repository of that struggle of the most dispossessed, who rose up en masse to reach into the conscience of a nation. 

These cities, of course, were major sites of confrontation with the racist policies of the segregationist South and conjure up images of the Civil Rights Movement in much the same way as Lexington and Concord do for the war for colonial independence from Britain. The Midwestern-museum in Wilberforce, Ohio is located at a major point along the underground railroad of the antebellum era (pre-1860) and represents the beginning of the struggle for African-American equality. Detroit, Mich., is the location of the site of the most explosive Northern urban insurrection of the 1960s and represents a city whose recovery from the hopelessness of that past was fueled by the rise of African-American political power and the vision of an African-American mayor, the late Coleman Young. 

The esprit de corps that develops within a community as it comes together to make the concept a reality is a beneficial side effect that eventually creates an exponential momentum toward successful completion of the project. Community pride and a sense of accomplishment after completion unite various groups rather than make them antagonistic toward each other. Tourist attractions and civil rights/historical museums attract people of all ages and ethnicities worldwide because they were the first great international media events. The events of the Civil Rights Movement were frequently broadcast nationally and internationally into the homes of people worldwide through the newly-developed medium of television. The vividness of the images along with the international renown of the major figure of the movement, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., has placed the African-American Civil Rights Movement indelibly in the collective psyche of the 40-plus generation. All subsequent movements within the United States (youth, women's, gay) as well as many abroad owe much to the inspiration derived from the Civil Rights Movement of the African-American community and their movement in the 1950s and 1960s toward desegregation and a more equitable society. 

The African-American Historical/Civil Rights Museum or Institute is a reflection of Sankofa because it helps us all to go back and fetch it.