The Associated Press © September 12, 2010 GREENSBORO, N.C.
A recent report on attendance at a new civil rights museum shows that despite widespread publicity, fewer than 6 percent of the visitors to the facility are from beyond North Carolina and neighboring states.
The News and Record of Greensboro reported Sunday that the first six months of the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro saw about 40,000 people come through its doors. Organizers had estimated the facility would draw 200,000 visitors a year.
Fewer than 3,000 of those visitors came from beyond North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia.
The museum's centerpiece is the Woolworth's lunch counter where black college students challenged the whites-only policy in 1960.
"We've just started," said Melvin "Skip" Alston, chairman of the museum's management committee and the Guilford County Board of Commissioners. "Three or four years, once we get it all together, then that's when we'll be averaging 200,000 a year.
"Once we get our whole organization up and running, yes, 200,000, I don't see that being a problem."
More than 80 percent of the museum's visitors have been from North Carolina and more than half of those were Greensboro, High Point or Winston-Salem residents.
The museum's annual budget is about $3 million with the money coming from ticket sales, special programs and corporate contributions. The museum also hosts three fundraising events to help with operating funds. No public money is used for daily operations.
Even though the museum has yet to bring outside visitors to the area, Henri Fourrier, president of the Greensboro Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, said he thinks it has attracted positive national attention that could translate in future visitors.
"I can't begin to say what it's done for us in terms of generating national press," Fourrier said. "We've had a tremendous number of travel writers come into the area."
The museum has been featured in several of the visitors bureau's advertisements, he said.
Those who do come say it is worth the trip.
"I've been coming here for 10 years waiting for it to open," Joy Cowdery, associate professor of education at Muskingum University in New Concord, Ohio, said during a recent visit. "Now, at last, it's open."
Muskingum sends a group of education majors to Greensboro every fall to improve their teaching skills at area facilities such as Gateway Education Center.
Her students who are too young to remember the struggle for civil rights in the 1960s were impressed by the exhibits at the museum.
"I think this is extremely valuable, especially for someone who is not familiar with the history, exactly what happened and how it happened," said Brock Whiteman, one of Cowdery's students who hopes to pursue a career in special education.
The museum is open Tuesday through Saturday. Tickets are $10 for adults with discounts for children, students and seniors.
and now for the “rest of the story”.
This project (also known as the Sit In Movement) was funded through our tax dollars, aka federal government money :
1) a $150,000 federal challenge grant from Save America’s Treasures .
(Amelia Parker, Executive Director of the Museum said, “Save America’s Treasures’ impact was two-fold. It provided critical early money to help get this project off the ground. But more importantly, the government’s support attached invaluable prestige and recognition that immediately signaled to state, city and private funders that this is a historic place of national import, and a worthwhile investment for the benefit of the community, the state and the nation.” Exemplary of SAT’s effectiveness to spawn economic development, the program’s early investment helped leverage the additional 98% of funding needed to complete this $23 million project— millions over the government’s share. This single project generated over 150 jobs—more than 100 for construction and about 50 in fabrication and design.)
2) $1 million from the State of North Carolina,
3) more than $200,000 from the City of Greensboro
4) more than $200,000 from Guilford County,
5) $148,152 from the U.S. Department of Interior through the National Park Service
As the 50th anniversary of the sit-ins grew closer, efforts increased to complete the project. Over 9 million dollars in donations and grants were raised. In addition, the museum qualified for historic preservation tax credits, which were sold for 14 million dollars. Work on the project proceeded, and was completed in time for the 50th anniversary opening. ]
Good grief! I wouldn’t walk across the street to see this place
Duh?
One more place to put on my list of places to avoid.
Yawn.
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104220
I'm sure Parker and Stone made a lot of money on this satire of liberal guilt. Maybe the operators of this example of our tax dollars at work could learn something from their fine example.
I know people who have relatives in NC but have sworn not to step foot in that state after the Duke Rape Hoax. Civil rights indeed.
200 visitors per day?
20 per HOUR
or 5 families per hour, 1 family every 12 minutes
Must get lonely
http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/104220
I'm sure Parker and Stone made a lot of money on this satire of liberal guilt. Maybe the operators of this example of our tax dollars at work could learn something from their fine example.
Can someone look up how many visitors have come the the Guilford Courthouse Revolutionary War battlefield in comparison? The number has to exceed 200K per year, and it is a much more important historical location than a museum devoted to a “cause”
Hmmm...is this in the same category as NC’s Teapot Museum?
If NC used it’s education budget to send every student every year over and over... /s
I’m gonna suggest a museum of Muslim tolerance and the government will fall all over themselves to give me money.
The National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee, has the same problems. It is in the hotel where MLK had his sex orgies the night before he was killed. The Federal Government funnels zillions of dollars to keep it open and some days it has as many as ten to twenty visitors.
Why would I travel to visit a museum to learn about how evil white people are? I can get that for free by watching any mainstream TV show or news broadcast.
Ping
Puh-leeze. I have no argument with this "museum" although I doubt it will ever have any strong appeal outside of required "educational" visits. But don't tell me there is no gubbermint funding. I ain't that stupid.
Skippy Alston pension Ping.
I think I have found what is offputting (for me) about this museum:
2 Things
A) We already know the struggle of the civil rights activists, and how it led to greater freedom for black BECAUSE WE ARE DAILY/WEEKLY REMINDED ABOUT THIS by the powers that be in the media and education: It is overload.
I appreciate what the civil rights leaders did, but when you are pounded in the head by it daily/weekly it gets “old” and tiring.
2ndly
B) The Price, $10.00 is too much for me to got to this museum (where you already know pretty much 100% of what is going to be in it)- I was recently in Washington, D.C. and already saw a “replica” of the Greensboro lunch counter promently displayed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History.
10 Dollars would still be too much for me, even if I still lived in North Carolina.
$10 for adults and children pay too?
I probably wouldn’t even go to this museum if it was FREE. It’s overpriced for what you get unless they serve free food from the lunch counter.