The National Center for Civil and Human Rights closed its doors in 2021 with a promise: when it reopened, it would be something larger. On November 8, 2025, the museum made good. The $57 million expansion nearly doubled the facility, adding 24,000 square feet, two new wings, six galleries, three classrooms, and an outdoor terrace overlooking the park that has anchored downtown Atlanta's tourism district for three decades.
The center first opened on June 23, 2014, on land donated by the Coca-Cola Company — a plot that placed it between the Georgia Aquarium and the World of Coca-Cola, at the northern edge of Centennial Olympic Park. It was the vision of civil rights leaders Evelyn Lowery and Andrew Young, who wanted a permanent space where Atlanta's central role in the movement could be told alongside the global struggle for human rights. Within its first year, the museum drew hundreds of thousands of visitors to see Martin Luther King Jr.'s personal papers, an immersive lunch counter sit-in experience, and rotating exhibits connecting the American civil rights movement to contemporary human rights campaigns worldwide.
A Building That Matches the Mission
The expansion was not cosmetic. The original 42,000-square-foot building had been operating near capacity for years, limiting programming and traveling exhibitions. The new wings — anchored by the Shirley Clarke Franklin Pavilion and the Arthur M. Blank Inspiration Hall — give the museum room to host larger collections, school groups, and public events that the original footprint could not accommodate.
At the November 4 ribbon-cutting, museum president Jill Savitt framed the reopening in terms of civic responsibility. The center, she said, aims to help visitors "grapple with America's past with the kind of introspection and critical thinking that self-government requires."
Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., echoed the founding vision: "My father's words always remind us that we are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality."
Downtown Context
The reopening arrives as the blocks surrounding the center undergo their most significant transformation in a generation. Centennial Yards is under construction across the street. The CTR — the former CNN Center — reopened in May 2026. Georgia State University is fast-tracking a $107 million campus overhaul before the FIFA World Cup. And MARTA's Five Points station renovation is reshaping transit access for the entire district.
For visitors walking the stretch between the Aquarium, the World of Coca-Cola, and the College Football Hall of Fame, the center has always been the institution that asks you to slow down. The expansion gives it the space — physically and programmatically — to ask that of many more people at once.
Complimentary tours are available, and tickets can be reserved in advance.
Original reporting by NPR, via Georgia Public Broadcasting, November 5, 2025.
