National Civil Rights Museum Reopens the Legacy Experience on May 16, Marking Its 35th Anniversary and 49 Days Before America’s 250th

Permanent galleries open to the public, raising the question Dr. King left unanswered as the nation approaches the 250th anniversary of its founding

Memphis, TN, May 05, 2026 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The National Civil Rights Museum will reopen the Legacy Experience, its fully reimagined permanent exhibition in the Legacy Building, on Saturday, May 16, 2026. The reopening marks the museum’s 35th anniversary year and arrives 49 days before July 4, 2026, when the United States observes the Semiquincentennial, the 250th anniversary of the nation’s founding.

The Legacy Experience does not ask visitors to observe history. It asks them to account for it. Built around five thematic pillars, poverty, education, housing, gender, and nonviolence, the new galleries trace America’s unfinished constitutional promises from 1619 through the Reconstruction Amendments, the civil rights legislation of the 1960s, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s final writings. The museum’s closing question to every visitor: “What will you do next?”

“The Legacy Experience is not just a renovation. It is a reckoning. We built it for this exact American moment,” said Dr. Russell Wigginton, President, National Civil Rights Museum

Dr. Hasan Jeffries, professor of history at The Ohio State University, served as a lead exhibition scholar for the Legacy Experience with a committee of local and national scholars and historians. Jeffries also led the museum's 2014 Lorraine renovation scholars’ team.

Historian Ryan M. Jones contributes to the museum’s interpretation through examination of recently declassified government documents related to the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Robert F. Kennedy. He has spent years researching and interviewing King’s family, his closest aides, eyewitnesses, and James Earl Ray’s surviving attorneys.

The reopening will also highlight activists like Veda Ajamu, a member of the museum’s own staff and a criminal justice reform advocate whose story is featured within the Legacy Experience exhibitions. Ajamu embodies what the museum calls its living commitment: the movements documented on its walls are not in the past tense.

“We didn’t just create galleries about the past. We opened a dialogue with the present. Each exhibit offers a moment to reflect and invites visitors to consider how the story continues with them,” said Ajamu, the museum’s Chief Engagement Officer.

The Legacy Experience reopening is the centerpiece of the museum’s 35th anniversary celebration and coincides with the U.S. Semiquincentennial, a national moment the museum frames as a constitutional reckoning. Forty-nine days before July 4, the National Civil Rights Museum opens a permanent exhibition asking whether the promises of American democracy have been kept.

The National Civil Rights Museum is located at the historic Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, the site of Dr. King’s assassination on April 4, 1968. It is a Smithsonian Affiliate and an anchor of the U.S. Civil Rights Trail. The Legacy Experience is open to the public beginning May 16, 2026.

Tickets are available now at visit.civilrightsmuseum.org. For more information about the reopening event, visit civilrightsmuseum.org.

About the National Civil Rights Museum
The NATIONAL CIVIL RIGHTS MUSEUM, located at the historic Lorraine Motel where civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated, gives a comprehensive overview of the American Civil Rights Movement from slavery to the present. Since the Museum opened in 1991, millions of visitors from around the world have come annually. The Museum is steadfast in its mission to honor and preserve the site of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination. It chronicles the American civil rights movement and the ongoing struggle for human rights, serving as a catalyst to inspire action and create positive social change. A Smithsonian Affiliate and an internationally acclaimed cultural institution, the Museum is recognized as a National Medal Award recipient by the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS), the top national honor for museums and libraries.

– civilrightsmuseum.org –

Attachments

Connie Dyson
National Civil Rights Museum
901-527-1225
cdyson@civilrightsmuseum.org

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