This story was updated on Tuesday, Dec. 10 at 2:41 p.m.
Beginning next month, the National Center of Civil and Human Rights will close its doors for most of 2025 to continue construction on a new 24,000-square-foot expansion.
The expansion project, which began in March of this year, will offer classrooms, additional exhibits and event spaces alongside the museum’s current attractions. The museum will remain open through Dec. 31, then close from January to August 2025.
“We are excited to begin our next chapter as we celebrate our tenth anniversary. Our expansion fulfills our founders’ original vision to establish a national cultural organization dedicated to inspiring the changemaker in each of us to protect rights,” said Jill Savitt, NCCHR’s president and CEO, in a March press release.
Founded in 2014, the center has become well known for its dive into exploring the history of the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and ’60s, as well as global human rights issues affecting women, racial minorities and LGBTQ people.
The development of new exhibitions will be funded in part by the museum’s Fulfilling the Vision capital campaign, which has raised over $52 million.
The expansion will introduce two new wings — East and West.
The East Wing will span one story and offer meeting spaces for classrooms, performances, events and training. The roof will also be available to the public, providing outdoor event space and an upcoming ticketed experience.
The three-story West Wing will feature a cafe and three new galleries. A family gallery on the lobby level for children 12 and under will offer “immersive, hands-on experiences to inspire interest in rights and justice for a new generation.”
The second gallery will showcase the history and legacy of the Reconstruction era, and the third will serve as a special exhibitions gallery for traveling and rotating exhibitions.
In addition to the newly constructed exhibits, the center will simultaneously be adding enhancements to its original building.
These features, according to the NCCHR website, include an imagined gallery that displays selected artifacts from the Morehouse College Martin Luther King Jr. Collection, a new Activation Lab for visitors to reflect on how to tap their power to protect rights and make positive changes in their communities and updates to the permanent civil and human rights exhibits.
Popular exhibits are also expected to be expanded, including the museum’s lunch counter sit-in experience, a simulation that places visitors into the point of view of nonviolent protestors during the Civil Rights Movement.
During the center’s closure to the public, frequent community events will be held across metro Atlanta. The center will also continue its ongoing programming including K-12 education, the LGBTQ+ Institute, DEI training, human rights training for law enforcement and more.
The museum is scheduled to reopen by October 2025.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated where the NCCHR’s community events and programming will take place during the facility’s closure, as well as the scheduled reopening. The story has been updated to reflect that those events will be held across metro Atlanta. A previous version of this story also misstated when construction began on the expansion. The story has been updated to reflect that construction began in March.
