The Power of Empty Space
As I made my way through the International Civil Rights Museum today, one adjective dropped
into my mind over and over again. The museum is, in a word, empty. There are no rambling
walls of text or overstuffed display cases. That emptiness, though, is powerful. The absence of
inhuman artifacts and cold statistics, leaves you entirely alone with the history’s pure, guttural,
human impact. One room holds nothing but a list of casualties of the Civil Rights Movement--
some familiar, some unfamiliar—carved coldly into a glass wall. Beyond the glass is an empty
darkness that calls to mind those who are missing from the list: the millions of victims whose
names have been lost to history, and the thousands more whose lives are still to be taken. In
another room, the original stools of the Woolworth Lunch counter stand empty and
unexplained. Their vacancy is heavy. It holds the weight not only of Ezell, Frank, David, and
Joseph, but also of Malcolm, Emmett, Martin, Medgar, and of Trayvon, Sandra, Michael and
Freddie. The Civil Rights Movement is not a complete set of events to be observed from the
sterile remove with which we approach history, but a living narrative of continuity and struggle.
By leaving the spaces that surround its most emotionally powerful moments empty, the
International Civil Rights Museum creates an atmosphere of stunning universality.
-Liam
into my mind over and over again. The museum is, in a word, empty. There are no rambling
walls of text or overstuffed display cases. That emptiness, though, is powerful. The absence of
inhuman artifacts and cold statistics, leaves you entirely alone with the history’s pure, guttural,
human impact. One room holds nothing but a list of casualties of the Civil Rights Movement--
some familiar, some unfamiliar—carved coldly into a glass wall. Beyond the glass is an empty
darkness that calls to mind those who are missing from the list: the millions of victims whose
names have been lost to history, and the thousands more whose lives are still to be taken. In
another room, the original stools of the Woolworth Lunch counter stand empty and
unexplained. Their vacancy is heavy. It holds the weight not only of Ezell, Frank, David, and
Joseph, but also of Malcolm, Emmett, Martin, Medgar, and of Trayvon, Sandra, Michael and
Freddie. The Civil Rights Movement is not a complete set of events to be observed from the
sterile remove with which we approach history, but a living narrative of continuity and struggle.
By leaving the spaces that surround its most emotionally powerful moments empty, the
International Civil Rights Museum creates an atmosphere of stunning universality.
-Liam
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