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GREENSBORO — Officials at the International Civil Rights Center and Museum no longer talk about their dream, one
that reaches back some 15 years. Instead, they talk about reality.

That’s what they did Friday.

“There is no question about us being able to finish this museum,” Melvin “Skip” Alston told a group of community leaders gathered for breakfast at the Proximity Hotel. “We’ve got the money. ... We’ve got $14 million in the bank.”

Museum officials said their financial situation had gotten a boost with the sale Aug. 17 of $10 million in tax credits linked to the project in the former Woolworth’s on South Elm Street.

Tax credits are purchased by private investors who use them to reduce their state and federal taxes on profits made in other business ventures.

Museum officials said Stonehenge Capital of New York and Columbus, Ohio, and Community Affordable Housing Equity Corp. in Raleigh bought the tax credits.

Local foundations and corporations have put up another $4 million for the project.
 

Alston, chairman of Sit-In Movement Inc., the nonprofit behind the effort, has estimated the work will cost $22 million, including $9 million to restore the old store and build 33,000 square feet of exhibits and 13,000 square feet for archives and administrative space.

Alston, who also serves as chairman of the Guilford County Board of Commissioners, said the museum will open Feb. 1, the 50th anniversary of the sit-ins that made the building a landmark in the civil rights movement.

On Feb. 1, 1960, four N.C. A&T students sat down at the Woolworth lunch counter to protest the store’s whites-only policy. The counter and stools they used will be part of the exhibits.

Museum officials say crews are working seven days a week and hope to finish construction by Nov. 1. Work on exhibits will begin in late October.

A weeklong series of events is planned in conjunction with the opening.

“The news is we have reached a point where it is no longer a dream, but a true reality,” said Amelia Parker, the museum’s executive director. “We have secured the final funding that will allow us to complete it.”

Officials said the museum could attract 200,000 people the first year.

“It’s been a long journey,” state Rep. Earl Jones, who worked with Alston to preserve the building, told city leaders. “This historic site belongs to all of you and it belongs to the world.”

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com