America’s segregation history remains uncomfortably recent, with many people alive today who attended segregated schools or drank from separate water fountains marked by race. These sites across the country preserve that painful history not to celebrate it but to ensure future generations understand what happened and why fighting for equality required such courage.
Walking through these museums and historic locations forces you to confront the systematic oppression that shaped American society for generations and continues to influence patterns of inequality today. Here is a list of 14 US sites preserving segregation history.
National Civil Rights Museum
Built around the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Martin Luther King Jr. was murdered in 1968, this museum chronicles the entire civil rights movement through powerful exhibits. The preserved motel rooms where King stayed create an intensely emotional connection to his final moments, while exhibits trace the struggle from slavery through Jim Crow to modern civil rights challenges.
The building across the street where James Earl Ray fired the fatal shot also forms part of the museum, giving visitors a complete picture of the circumstances.
Brown v Board of Education National Historic Site
Located in Topeka’s former Monroe Elementary School, this site commemorates the landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that declared school segregation unconstitutional. The restored segregated school now serves as an interpretive center explaining how thirteen African American families challenged the school board by attempting to enroll their children in white schools…