National Urban League’s new civil rights museum tells the Black Northern civil rights story

Black history in the North began long before Southern families boarded trains for the Great Migration. Generations of Black people had been enslaved in the North, fought for their freedom here, and built communities. In its retelling of the African American Civil Rights struggle, the National Urban League’s new Urban Civil Rights Museum in Harlem (UCRM) will center the lives of Black northerners during its grand opening and ribbon-cutting on Nov. 14,

Located on the fourth floor of the NUL’s Empowerment Center at 117 West 125th Street, organizers say the UCRM is New York City’s first museum dedicated to showing how Northern communities resisted injustices.

The North needs its own civil rights story

“There needs to be something else because the southern Black experience is not the totality of the Black experience,” Marc H. Morial, NUL’s president and CEO, told the Amsterdam News.

“The southern Black experience is not the totality of the Black experience.”

Marc H. Morial, NUL president and CEO

“What existed in the North? Slavery! It was in every single state, except maybe Vermont,” Morial explained. “Black communities included enslaved communities and free communities, and then coming into the 20th century, there was the movement of people, some six million who left the South, coming to the North as a part of the Great Migration, and the communities and the neighborhoods they created led to new cultural, political, and economic traditions.”

Morial said the idea for the museum came up during NUL’s 2010 centennial celebration, when exhibits shown at a mobile museum proved that there needed to be a permanent institution documenting Northern civil rights history. The new museum is in NUL’s headquarters where they also offer affordable housing, nonprofit office spaces, and retail space. “We own this building; we own this museum,” Morial noted, while emphasizing that ownership gives NUL the ability to create a museum that shows an unfiltered historical interpretation of Black civil rights.

Five centuries, eight galleries

The museum’s permanent exhibition, “Moving History Forward,” covers the 1500s through the present in eight galleries. “We have 500 years to cover in a relatively small space,” said Jennifer Scott, UCRM’s executive director and chief curator. “But it’s the kind of constraint that really informs your curatorial approach and practice: what selections and choices you are able to make, how to reach a certain tenor. So it’s a nice constraint to have in some ways, even though it’s also challenging to try to tell big stories when you can’t be comprehensive.

“When you walk in, there’s lots of colors and textures; it feels very contemporary,” she said. “We wanted people to start with the past but then also make connections to the present, to their present lives, and to think about the future and the kind of change they wanted to see in the world, they want to make, they want to participate in, and how to just reflect on becoming potential agents of social change.”

Freedom Square introduces visitors to the museum through an immersive film. Changemakers Murals greet them in the lobby.

Walk the galleries swipe →

1. IntroFreedom SquareAn immersive film introduces visitors; Changemakers Murals greet them in the lobby
2. 1500–1900Roots of the Urban NorthThe transatlantic slave trade, Northern slavery, the Underground Railroad and free Black settlements
3. 1900–1970The Great MigrationTwo waves that brought nearly six million Black people North and West
4. 1920–1940The Harlem RenaissanceCultural and political expression
5. 1940–1960Fighting for JusticeChanging civil rights struggles
6. 1970–presentFinding Our WayPolitical empowerment and contemporary movements
7. Resource gallerySeat at The TableAsks visitors to think about their own participation in the struggle

“Roots of the Urban North,” covering 1500–1900, looks at the transatlantic slave trade, Northern slavery, the Underground Railroad, and free Black settlements.

“The Great Migration,” covering 1900–1970, follows two waves of migration that brought nearly six million Black people from the South to Northeastern, Midwestern, and Western states.

“The Harlem Renaissance,” covering 1920–1940, explores cultural and political expression.

Displays show issues of the NUL’s “Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life” and the famed Black newspapers like the Amsterdam News, Pittsburgh Courier, and Chicago Defender, which, a UCRM wall label says, “actively shaped the world about which they reported.”

“Fighting for Justice,” covering 1940–1960, and “Finding Our Way,” covering 1970–present, show the changing civil rights struggles, political empowerment, and contemporary movements. “Seat at The Table,” the resource gallery, asks visitors to think about their own participation in the struggle.

Inside the museum

Step inside the story

Swipe or tap the arrows to move through the galleries in order. Tap any photo to view it full screen. Photos by Mali Gibbs.

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Roots of the Urban North01 / 17

A projected map in “Routes and Communities of Resistance” marks maroon communities across the Caribbean and the Americas. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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Roots of the Urban North02 / 17

The “Roots of the Urban North” gallery, with its projected map of the transatlantic slave trade, opens onto “The Great Migration.” (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Great Migration03 / 17

National Urban League President Marc H. Morial points to a map of the first Great Migration. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Great Migration04 / 17

Morial leads a tour through the Great Migration gallery. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Great Migration05 / 17

Visitors take in the Great Migration gallery’s street-scene mural and travel displays. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Black Press06 / 17

The “Black Media and Representation” wall, with a Horace R. Cayton quote from the Pittsburgh Courier. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Black Press07 / 17

Photos and front pages of the Pittsburgh Courier, Chicago Defender and New York Amsterdam News. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Black Press08 / 17

The New York Amsterdam News front page of June 5, 1943, on display at UCRM. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era09 / 17

“The Return Home,” “Victory at Home and Abroad” and “The Great Depression” panels line a gallery wall. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era10 / 17

“The Return Home” looks at Black veterans who came back from World War II to discrimination. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era11 / 17

“Turning Points” covers Brown v. Board of Education and Emmett Till and Mamie Till-Mobley. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era12 / 17

A Pan-African display with a Kwame Nkrumah poster, books by C.L.R. James and Marcus Garvey, and the red, black and green flag. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era13 / 17

“Advancing Equality in a New Era” profiles National Urban League leader Whitney M. Young Jr., beside a panel on Dr. King’s Northern fight for justice. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era14 / 17

“Rebellion! 1960s Protests and Uprisings” maps uprisings in Northern cities. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era15 / 17

A “We Demand an End to Police Brutality Now!” sign hangs over the gallery. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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The Civil Rights Era16 / 17

A “We March for Jobs, Peace, Freedom & Equality” banner hangs against the museum’s windows over Harlem. (Mali Gibbs photo)

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Finding Our Way17 / 17

Vintage televisions replay news footage in “Finding Our Way,” with the “Seat at The Table” gallery beyond. (Mali Gibbs photo)

“Every era looks different, and we wanted to kind of show those differences throughout the gallery,” Scott explained. In every era, Black people have faced new challenges: “The injustices, although connected, look different in each era. And so, the ways that people creatively resisted and worked against it to secure their civil rights all looked very different.

“It includes activism, depending on how people defined it. Some people protest; some people advocate for certain kinds of legislation to be changed. In the 19th century, as people were being enslaved and trying to become free, civil rights could look like running away from enslavement, becoming a fugitive, breaking an unjust law, or working within the law to petition [for] your freedom or purchase your freedom. But it could also look like learning to read when reading was illegal, or building a free Black community, or building a church that you can worship in safely and not in a segregated or second-class fashion.”

In the 19th century, civil rights could look like…

• Running away from enslavement
• Breaking an unjust law
• Petitioning for freedom
• Purchasing freedom
• Learning to read
• Building a free Black community
• Building a church to worship safely

Scott worked with the exhibition design firm Local Projects to match stories up with photographs, objects, projections, music, and digital displays throughout the museum. UCRM’s inaugural rotating exhibition, “Thriving! Harlem as Homeplace,” will be on display Nov. 14 through May 17, 2027. It honors neighborhood places and the people who sustained them. It features historic housing footage, maps, and a photography-studio recreation that allows visitors to see Harlem through the lives of its everyday residents.

“Building this building [and] opening the museum is a homecoming for us.”

Jennifer Scott, UCRM executive director

“We’re very proud to be in Harlem,” Scott said. “You probably know this already, but the National Urban League began in Harlem in 1910. So building this building [and] opening the museum is a homecoming for us. It’s like a homecoming.”