International Civil Rights Center & Museum in downtown Greensboro

By Molly Ashline, Staff Writer

Published in print Dec 3, 2014.

The International Civil Rights Center & Museum (ICRCM) in downtown Greensboro has been facing a myriad of challenges recently.

On top of the recent termination of Executive Director Lacy Ward, the museum has been burdened by financial difficulties.

Greensboro Mayor Nancy Vaughan, who is also on the museum’s board, made a formal offer earlier this month to switch management of the museum to city control.

This offer, which was tabled by the ICRCM board, would ensure city funding for the museum, if accepted

City management would also make the ICRCM’s operations more publicly accessible.

In a news conference held Nov.17, the News and Record reported Mayor Vaughan as saying, “The proposal for the City to operate and manage the Museum is a result of our focus on keeping the Museum open, making it successful and restoring its credibility as an organization that can be trusted by maintaining public meetings and records and striving for fiscal accountability.”

There is some discrepancy between what Vaughan has proposed for the ICRCM and what changes the museum was already making.

The News and Record reported that Vaughan stated during the news conference, “We also propose that the board be representative of our community as a whole.”

But the ICRCM altered the shape of the board in August with a very similar goal in mind.

Ward told The Carolinian in August that the board added ten new members to “increase the diversity by sector.”

In an interview Friday, John L. Swaine, the chief financial and operational officer at the ICRCM for five years, criticized both Ward and Vaughan for their actions regarding the museum.

He said Vaughan’s offer was “appalling” and thought Ward did not accomplish the job he was hired to do, which was raise money for the museum.

In regards to the financial issues of the ICRCM, Swaine stated that the museum incurs approximately $80,000 dollars in salary, debt and operational expenses every month.

He also noted that the museum is currently about $850,000 dollars in debt.

He said that the museum does not receive enough foot traffic every month to pay these expenses.

However, Swaine expressed disinterest in the city taking over the operations of the museum as a whole.

The one facet of the museum that is not controversial is its significance to the city of Greensboro and to civil rights.

The News and Record reported Vaughan as saying, “The mission of the Civil Rights Center and Museum is to ensure that the world never forgets the courage displayed by four young North Carolina A&T State College students in February of 1960. That heritage, and story, is extremely important to the City of Greensboro.”

Swaine also noted the continuing support the ICRCM could bring to current civil rights issues, such as the protests that began in August against the shooting of an 18-year-old robbery suspect by a white police officer in Ferguson, Mo.

Swaine stated that, instead of the violence witnessed in Ferguson, there could be conversation and peaceful protest in Greensboro because of the example that the museum continues to recount.

Whatever the solution is for continuing the ICRCM, it will have to deal with changes.

Should the board decide to take Vaughan’s offer, the ICRCM would become a public institution, which would subject founders, and currently lifetime board members, Melvin “Skip” Alston and Earl F. Jones, to term limits.

On the other hand, if the museum board rejects the mayor’s offer, the ICRCM would remain within current board control, but the museum’s financial difficulties could continue and possibly intensify with time.

Vaughan’s offer will expire on Dec. 17 if the board does not accept it before then.