North Louisiana Civil Rights Coalition

The NLCRC provides educational research, collection of civil rights data and collaboration with high schools, higher education, government, churches and other community organizations to be housed in north Louisiana's civil rights museum. In 2013, Dr. Simpkins, Dr. Harry Blake, and Dr. C.E. McLain came together to organize a week of events to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the Civil Rights Rights History in north Louisiana. The group sponsoring this series of events brought together many old friends from the local civil rights era. After the week of events, they realized there was still much to do. It was at that point that Dr. Simpkins proclaimed, "We are going to make the old church into a civil rights museum." The group incorporated into a non-profit, 501(c)(3) as The North Louisiana Civil Rights Coalition. After approaching Shreveport Mayor Cedric Glover in 2014, he designated the site for the future civil rights museum. Plans were drawn up with an estimated $5 million as the amount needed to re-purpose the structure into a viable civil rights museum. Mayor Ollie Tyler has continued city support for the project. March 12, 2018, the City of Shreveport announced a $500,000 grant award for physical preservation of the Old Galilee Missionary Baptist Church for a Civil Rights Museum from the U.S. Department of Interior and National Park Service. This funding will go to stabilize the building.
We are also building several programs to be ready to move into the museum once it is restored. Our Oral History Project has 20 oral histories, many over the age of 90 years old. Our outreach educational program has reached 1000 Caddo Parish High School students by showing the documentary, "Beyond Galilee" to junior and senior age students as well as various organizations and churches.

Testimonials

At the news conference, Mayor Glover said: "For some time, the City of Shreveport and the North Louisiana Civil Rights Coalition have envisioned a Civil Rights museum and institute dedicated to the rich history of African Americans and the African-American experience during the Civil Rights movement. The church was an immense part of the cultural heritage of the community and this is a unique opportunity to re-purpose one of our most historic landmarks."

"The city has continued to purchase land, conduct surveys and other actions to move this project forward. Although the Coalition has agreed to raise funds towards this project, this is an initiative that is worthy of other private community support. My administration continues to support this effort. We hope others will step forward to help preserve this important piece of our history."