Communities across the United States are increasingly transforming buildings and sites once associated with racism and segregation into museums, cultural centers and memorials that acknowledge the past while promoting education and reconciliation.
The movement comes years after widespread debates over Confederate monuments and amid continuing disputes over how the nation’s history should be presented in public spaces.
In Fort Worth, Texas, a former Ku Klux Klan meeting hall is being converted into an arts and community center named in honor of a Black lynching victim. Organizers say the building, once used as a symbol of intimidation against Black residents and other minority groups, will instead serve as a venue for performances, community gatherings, historical education and healing.
Similar projects are underway in several other states.
A former segregated theater in Laurens, South Carolina, that later housed a Ku Klux Klan museum has been redeveloped into an anti-hate education center. In Fredericksburg, Virginia, officials relocated a historic slave auction block from a downtown street corner to a museum and plan to create a memorial at its original location.
In New Orleans, a former segregated school now houses civil rights exhibits, anti-racism organizations and affordable housing for seniors. Meanwhile, in Drew, Mississippi, the Emmett Till Interpretive Center is preserving the barn where 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured and killed in 1955, transforming it into a memorial and educational site.
Supporters of the projects say they offer an alternative to either demolishing painful reminders of the past or preserving them without context. Instead, they seek to reinterpret the sites while recognizing the harm they once represented.
The efforts are unfolding as the federal government and local communities continue to debate how American history should be presented. A 2025 executive order directed federal cultural institutions and national parks to remove or revise material considered divisive. While a federal judge initially ordered some historical content restored, an appeals court later allowed the changes to remain in place while legal challenges continue.
The issue remains especially contentious at sites such as Stone Mountain, Georgia, where state law protects the massive Confederate carving of Jefferson Davis and Confederate generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson. Efforts to add exhibits explaining the mountain’s ties to slavery, segregation and the Ku Klux Klan have drawn legal challenges from Confederate heritage groups.
Source: Axios