Things to Do in Selma, Alabama: National Voting Rights Museum and Institute

Located near the foot of the famous Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, visitors will find the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute. This unique museum provides the World with an opportunity to learn the lessons that the past offers, on the exact site where the tragic events took place nearly half a century ago.

During the mid-1960s, Selma, Alabama, became the center of focus as African Americans and white sympathizers began a relentless campaign to obtain the right for all Americans to vote. The campaign was done through a series of non-violent protests and marches, which often resulted in the participants being beaten in a barbaric manner. The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute strives to remind the world of the struggle that took place in order for all Americans to have the right to vote, regardless of race, education or wealth.

The struggle to obtain equality in voting was a long battle that began when our nation was in it's infancy. The Voting Rights Movement obtained it's first monumental success in 1965, when President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law. This success was echoed in 1982, when President Reagan signed an extension of the Voting Rights Act.

The struggle for the right to vote, which spanned centuries, ultimately came to a head in Selma, Alabama in 1965, just feet from where the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute now stands. The museum works to preserve the history of this movement, and to serve as a monument for those who suffered, and even lost their lives, in an attempt to gain the right to vote for their elected representatives.

The National Voting Rights Museum and Institute features a number of various exhibit rooms that follow a theme. Designed in a powerful expressive and interpretive manner, these exhibit rooms highlight the struggle of obtaining the right to vote, and serve as a monument for those who took part in this struggle, which the museum feels should never be forgotten.