Memoirs from Greensboro

Reflections from the visit to the Civil Rights Museum

On a business visit to Greensboro in North Carolina (which is a lovely place blessed immensely by Mother Nature), I had the opportunity to visit the Civil Rights Museum.

I had read about the museum, partly due to my pursuit of the civil rights movement in the US and Martin Luther King, and was excited to visit this place. The museum is conveniently located in downtown Greensboro.

Since the details about the museum can be looked upon on the internet, it is my humble attempt to describe the experience of the visit. As I pen these thoughts, I realize the limitations of words and language in illustrating any human experience that is visceral. It perhaps reflects on my inability to adroitly use idioms and paint the layers of an experience that moved me greatly. However, there are some stories that need to be told, no matter the paucity of elegant prose or the deficiencies of imagination.

1. The experience is heart-wrenching

Watching a battery of images, ranging from dastardly murder of a community to practices that epitomised apartheid, is an extremely distressing feeling. One gets to view the dinner hall where the 4 Black Students were refused service thereby prompting peaceful protests by the four. But it is the images, many of which are gory, that drive a sickle through the heart. The visual narrative is augmented by the recital from a guide who hailed from the oppressed community. The reinforcement of the wrongdoings gets amplified when someone who has been through agony were to mouth the story.

2. A Lesson in Design Thinking

In hindsight, I reckon the practice of taking visitors for a gallery walk of gripping visuals and a haunting screenplay of life during the civil rights days is part of the design. The idea is to orchestrate a vicarious experience of agony and dismay through simulation of the injustice felt by the community then. The assembly of artefacts (I vividly recall the coke vending machine that dispensed coke for two communities at varied prices and through different taps) drills through the message that injustice was not just perpetrated but also rehearsed and orchestrated.

3. A feeling of Mutuality

Actually, the civil rights movement in the US cannot be seen from the lens of the American Black community solely. The time spent in Greensboro triggered memories from history of Apartheid or even segregation practices in India (where the so-called backward castes are secluded from the mainstream in a myriad ways). It is just that the form varies, but the essence remains the same!
Any form of injustice, exclusion or crime against a minority community cannot just be a minority-issue. Rather, it should compel the majority to reflect. Strange as it may sound, but those 90 minutes I spent in the Museum made me feel just like any Black who would have lived through the ignominy of discrimination and abuse. Perhaps, it is also a testimony to the design element of the museum that one experiences that feeling!

4. In conclusion

At the end of the tour, one question kept teasing me relentlessly– “Why remind the new generation of the indiscretions from the past?”

“Isn’t time a great healer?”

Perhaps! I am not sure I have derived a definitive answer. But could that just be a red herring? The questions above are equivalent to asking whether ravaged communities can move on after 1984/2002 riots in India. Some people move on, some clasp the strings of history.

And that may present a case for appreciating History. History in many ways helps us understand social dynamics and events in a particular context. Museums like the Civil Rights Museum help discover that the context of the Civil Rights Movement is no different to similar contexts that exist elsewhere. Perhaps, by getting sensitive to events of the past, mankind might develop greater sensitivity and empathy.

Of many fights, mankind witnesses one duel: between the “oppressed” and the “oppressors”. This experience in Greensboro validates that this duel is still on today in various parts of the globe. And perhaps, that is indeed the answer — that the fight for independence and justice is never ephemeral. It will continue!