ATLANTA — Construction crews are finishing a major downtown Atlanta attraction. The National Center for Civil and Human Rights opens in 13 days.
Tuesday, Channel 2 Action News was the first allowed into the Centennial Olympic Park Drive museum where tourists will be given a glimpse of the experience that moves you through history and a wide range of emotions.
June 23, The National Center for Civil and Human Rights will tell its story to the world. With less than two weeks to go, the center’s CEO Doug Shipman gave Channel 2’s John Bachman a look inside.
“So many people have no memory of the civil rights movement because they were too young. We wanted to give them their own experience of what it felt like,” Shipman said.
That will include a wide range of emotions, including anger as you sit as a protester at a lunch counter. Headsets will hurl insults at you, taking you inside that experience.
“Not just telling them about it, not just a video, but to allow them to sit in the seat, to allow them to hear what it felt like to be there to have their own physical experience. I want them to take away the question, “What would I have done?’” Shipman said.
And then there’s the freedom riders. They were among the dozens of protesters arrested in Mississippi fighting to desegregate buses.
“Young people (will) walk up to this and say, ‘Oh my goodness this looks like me.’”
say, oh my goodness this looks like me," Shipman said.