As Washington, D.C. and the country reflect on the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Dream” speech and the March on Washington, the Newseum is preparing to open a new exhibit about the students who helped fuel the civil rights movement. On Aug. 2, the Newseum will open “Make Some Noise: Students and the Civil Rights Movement,” an exhibit that explores the new generation of student leaders in the early 1960s who fought segregation by making their voices heard and exercising their First Amendment rights.
The exhibit will feature a section of the original F.W. Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C., where in 1960 four African-American college students launched the sit-in movement by refusing to leave their counter stools after being denied service in the Whites-only section.
“Make Some Noise” will spotlight key figures in the student civil rights movement, including John Lewis, now a U.S. representative from Georgia, and Julian Bond, who later became chairman of the NAACP. Through the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the young activists took direct action to end segregation and break down racial barriers in voting rights, education and the workplace by organizing sit-ins, marches and voter registration drives.
The exhibit also will include a bronze casting of the Birmingham, Ala., jail cell door behind which civil rights leader the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. penned his famous “Letter From Birmingham Jail” in 1963.
MEDIA EVENT RSVP: At 10 a.m., on Aug. 2, media are invited to tour the exhibit and speak with Newseum curators.
RSVP to Allison Leitch, aleitch@newseum.org.
At a special opening weekend “Inside Media” program on Aug. 3, author M.J. O’Brien will discuss his new book “We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson Woolworth’s Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired,” which chronicles a harrowing sit-in experience in Jackson, Miss., in 1963. The program is free with regular paid admission and seating is on a space-available basis.
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