“The essence of the movement has been captured here, the main figures that were involved in the movement are here,” said William Anderson, considered the founder of the Albany Movement.
“The stories that are told here, in print and in audio, are a very accurate portrayal of what it was like,” he said.
Anderson figures prominently in the thousands of photographs comprising the expansion’s interactive exhibits.
“I’m beginning to realize, that in most of the exhibits, I am here. That really gives me more of a sense of pride,” he said.
With hundreds jailed during 1961 for participating in the movement’s activities, Anderson invited his wife’s brother’s “ace buddy,” King, to come to Albany.
Anderson, who came to Albany in 1957 to practice medicine, said he was probably elected the Albany Movement’s founder because he was “the least objectionable.” He left Albany in 1963 to pursue a career as a surgeon in Detroit, where he lives today.
Secretary for the movement’s organizers, Mary Frances Jenkins, has worked on script writing and the selection of photographs for the exhibit’s panels since 2006.
“I saw as it developed on paper, but now, to see it up is spectacular, and I’m just pleased that I was a part of it,” Jenkins said.
Jenkins has published a book of photographs from the movement, taken by her husband’s former business partner, Benny Frank Cochran.
A very private person, Jenkins had the knowledge of the movement and rapport with its participants, but needed “some cajoling” to become a part of a team of experts that assembled the content for the museum expansion, former Albany Tomorrow President Tommy Chatmon said.
For many years, the area’s civil rights history “was in the minds and hearts of many of you, but it wasn’t written down anywhere,” Chatmon said.
“When you go to the national museum in Memphis, they talk about Albany. When you go to the Civil Rights Institute in Birmingham, they talk about Albany. When you go to the King Center in Atlanta, they talk about Albany. Everybody talks about Albany but Albany,” he said.
Founded as the Mt. Zion Albany Civil Rights Movement Museum, the museum as existed in the Old Mt. Zion Church on Whitney Avenue since 1998. Mt. Zion later donated the restored church to Albany Tomorrow, but has remained actively involved in raising funds for the museum.
Chatmon, who left Albany Tomorrow last year, said he was sad to hear that Albany Tomorrow’s board had decided to dissolve the organization.
“I don’t know if there’s another organization that’s had any more of an impact on my hometown, in such a short period of time, than Albany Tomorrow,” he said.
The museum expansion is the last of some $130 million in sales-tax funded improvements in downtown Albany made by Albany Tomorrow since 1999.
But the expansion “will forever commemorate and etch in stone the contributions of those who truly wanted America to be the land of the free and the home of the brave,” said Rep. Sanford Bishop, D-Albany.
