Community Engagement Paper

"Community engagement refers to the process by which community benefit organizations and individuals build ongoing, permanent relationships for the purpose of applying a collective vision for the benefit of a community.” Engaging the community is an essential task for museums to accomplish. In order to do so, the museums must “determine who those communities are, their needs, and how the museum can work with them to meet their goals”. As technology and the way people learn and communicate change, museums must evolve as well and accommodate exhibits in order to have the community fully engaged into what they are trying to convey in their museum. There are many methods to involve the community, spark interest and help benefit the museum. By

They have a number of different programs to spark discussion and educate visitors, while increasing the awareness of the civil rights movement. One program in particular is a book and author series, which is a monthly event that involve authors that have written a book (biography/ autobiography) about the civil rights. The event delves into the author’s personal account, investigations, theories and historical events that might have impacted the community, nation and the world. This program helps the visitor get possibly a first person account of the events, rather than watching a video or reading a text, and the visitor can understand more through Q&A’s. The Music and the Movement is a special exhibit that uses music that inspired action, spread messages and how it influenced episodes of the civil rights movement over time. The museum host a number of guest speakers and staff members, in a free event called “Lunch and Learn”, where speakers discuss certain issues that had an impact on todays’ culture. Some topics discussed are the March on Washington, History of Blacks in Cinema, Music and the Movement, etc. These topics are available for younger visitors but the museum uses a different

Due to some sensitive material, the permanent exhibit does have an age requirement (12 years old). While visiting the museum I noticed a wide variety of visitors (families, students, elderly) of all ages, gender, and ethnicity. Many families had pamphlets (on the website) that had question that would help the parents have conversations about what the exhibits were displaying. How to pose questions to their children and how to deal with their feelings on the subject that is presented. The museums website makes finding all of the activities, guides, and special event easily accessible. There are lots of staff members that are eager to help and inform the visitors about the special events. From observing the website and visiting the museum, there main focus is to engage young visitors to learn, inspire and make changes in their local