New Reconstruction Era Exhibition Shows How Reform and Resistance Have Shaped U.S. Civil Rights

National Center for Civil and Human Rights Unveils Broken Promises Gallery “Guided” by Ida B. Wells

ATLANTA, GEORGIA / ACCESS Newswire / December 5, 2025 / The National Center for Civil and Human Rights’ new gallery, “Broken Promises,” is a permanent exhibit on Reconstruction-the period after the Civil War and Emancipation when America first attempted to build a multi-racial democracy. The Center invites people to experience the new gallery which opens to the public today, December 5, 2025, as part of the Center’s $58 million expansion.

The gallery presents Black progress during the Reconstruction Era, when nearly four million newly freed Black Americans claimed their rights as citizens, voted, won elected office, created schools, and reshaped economic and civic life across the South. It also presents the violent backlash that met and then suppressed those gains – through racial terror, political disenfranchisement, and Jim Crow legal segregation.

“Reconstruction reminds us that the expansion of rights in America has never moved in a straight line. Every reform toward wider freedom has been accompanied by efforts to limit those rights,” said Jill Savitt, the CEO of the Center. “Recognizing that pattern helps us understand the forces that have long shaped America, up until today.”

Curated by the Center’s Chief Program Officer, Kama Pierce, the gallery has anti-lynching crusader Ida B. Wells as its “docent,” and focuses on three cities – Wilmington, N.C., Atlanta, Ga., and Tulsa, Okla. In each city, Black achievement provoked white backlash that resulted in massacres and racial terror.

The immersive gallery contains artifacts from the Without Sanctuary Collection, including a fragment of a noose and photographs of lynchings that were turned into postcards for entertainment. The artifacts deepen visitors’ understanding of how racial terror was wielded as a strategy.

The gallery’s memorial space features a historical marker honoring Mary Turner, who was lynched in 1918. Turner’s family erected the public marker to honor her – but it was consistently defaced. The family donated the marker — marred by 11 bullet holes — to the Center. Artist Lonnie Holley has interpreted the marker in the gallery’s memorial space.

“The Mary Turner marker is a powerful artifact that bears witness twice – first to the original terror, and again to the present resistance to let the truth be told,” said Pierce.

The Center decided to add a gallery on Reconstruction because the era has not always been fully or accurately represented in American classrooms. The Center also wanted to provide more context for its signature gallery on the Civil Rights Movement.

“After Reconstruction, the United States entered a decades-long period of Jim Crow segregation and unequal protection for Black Americans,” said Pierce. “The Civil Rights Movement emerged not as a new struggle, but as a renewed demand to enforce the promises first made during Reconstruction.”

The Center received a $2 million grant from the Mellon Foundation for the exhibition.

About the National Center for Civil and Human Rights
The National Center for Civil and Human Rights is a museum and cultural organization that inspires the changemaker in each of us. Opened in 2014, the Center connects US civil rights history to global human rights movements today. Our experiences highlight people who have worked to protect rights and who model how individuals create positive change. For more information, visit civilandhumanrights.org. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram @civilandhumanrights and LinkedIn at linkedin.com/company/ncchr.

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SOURCE: National Center for Civil and Human Rights

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