Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights adds a major Reconstruction-era gallery to its exhibits

A new permanent gallery links post-Civil War history to the museum’s core civil rights narrative

Atlanta’s National Center for Civil and Human Rights has expanded its exhibition scope to include a major new gallery focused on the Reconstruction era, a period that followed the Civil War and reshaped the nation’s political and social order. The gallery, titled “Broken Promises: The Legacy of the Reconstruction Era,” opened to the public on December 5, 2025 as part of a broader, recently completed expansion of the downtown museum.

The Reconstruction-era installation is presented as a permanent exhibit and examines both the rapid civic gains made by newly emancipated Black Americans and the backlash that followed through political disenfranchisement, racial terror, and the legal architecture of segregation. The gallery is designed to place Reconstruction alongside later chapters of the U.S. freedom struggle already central to the institution’s identity, including the mid-20th century Civil Rights Movement and ongoing global human rights campaigns.

Expansion adds new galleries, classrooms, and event space

The Reconstruction exhibit is one component of a larger transformation at the Center, which reopened on November 8, 2025 after a multi-month closure tied to a roughly $58 million expansion. The project added approximately 24,000 square feet and introduced new gallery space, upgraded visitor experiences, and additional classrooms intended to support educational programming.

Alongside the Reconstruction gallery, the reopening introduced several other major additions and updates, including a refreshed core Civil Rights Movement gallery and a reimagined space dedicated to the Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection. The museum has also added areas structured around civic learning and audience participation, reflecting a broader trend among history institutions toward interactive interpretation.

Key features of the new and updated exhibit lineup

• “Broken Promises: The Legacy of the Reconstruction Era,” a permanent gallery examining Reconstruction’s democratic experiments and the subsequent retrenchment.
• “Rolls Down Like Water: The American Civil Rights Movement,” an updated signature gallery that adds new material and expands immersive components, including a lunch-counter experience.
• “A Committed Life: The Morehouse College Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection,” a redesigned gallery structured to rotate artifacts on an ongoing basis.
• “Everyone. Everywhere.: The Global Human Rights Movement,” a gallery emphasizing international human rights stories and contemporary movements.

Why Reconstruction is being foregrounded now

By adding a dedicated Reconstruction-era gallery, the Center formally broadens its timeline beyond the better-known milestones of the 1950s and 1960s. In practical terms, the new exhibit positions Reconstruction as a foundational chapter in the long arc of voting rights, citizenship, public violence, and state power—subjects that recur throughout the museum’s existing civil rights content.

The museum’s expansion and new programming place Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement, and modern human rights issues into a single, contiguous interpretive framework.

The Center is located in downtown Atlanta on Pemberton Place, near major visitor destinations, and its expanded footprint includes additional capacity for education and public programming alongside its exhibition galleries.