If you view the state's long road toward racial equality only in terms of black and white, you're missing part of the journey.
The N.C. Museum of History weaves together the stories of courageous black, white and Native American individuals to present "A Change is Gonna Come: Black, Indian and White Voices for Racial Equality."
But you won't find the exhibit within the museum's walls. It's presented solely online, a reflection of the changes that have come both to the museum's financial abilities and to the way patrons prefer to access information.
"We've just become a technology-driven society," said exhibit project manager Doris McLean Bates. "So you have to try to capture people that way."
The exhibit tells the story of civil rights in North Carolina with words, photos and audio clips of people giving firsthand accounts of their experiences.
Along the way, you'll hear about well-known people and events such as visits to the state by Martin Luther King Jr. (including one, in Rocky Mount, during which he gave an early version of his "I Have a Dream" speech) and the 1960 student sit-in at the Greensboro Woolworth's whites-only lunch counter.
People you don't know
But you'll also learn about lesser-known figures like William Wallace Finlator of Raleigh and Robert Seymour of Chapel Hill, two white Baptist ministers who spoke out against segregation from their pulpits in the 1960s, and a campaign at Pembroke State University to preserve a brick building as a reminder of the campus's legacy as a school for Native American students when few others existed.
"Usually when you talk about the civil rights movement, most people tend to focus on the black experience," Bates said. "But we wanted to look at the American Indian experience as well, and tie that in. See what they had in common, see what was different about their experience, but also not to forget about white individuals, because they did play a part as well, pro or con.
"Tying in the three experiences of those groups, we think, is pretty unique," she said, "especially down here in the South."
