Photograph of the Entrance to Rolls Down Like Water Exhibit

Rolls Down Like Water: American Civil Rights Movement Exhibit at The National Center for Civil and Human Rights. 1950’s/Urban South Gallery.

By the mid-20th century the American South was caught between tradition and change. In the decades following the end of Reconstruction, a “new South” had sprung into existence as commerce and industry gradually replaced agriculture as the cornerstone of the economy.

This exhibit explores life in the 1950s in the Urban South through interactive displays featuring Jim Crow laws and the people in power who vocally and violently enforced segregation. Despite this adversity, African-American Institutions thrived in Atlanta with a dynamic community network of churches, colleges, schools, fraternal orders, social clubs, and a range of commercial ventures.

About the Curator:
George Costello Wolfe (born September 23, 1954) is an American playwright and director of theater and film. He won a Tony Award in 1993 for directing Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and another Tony Award in 1996 for his direction of the musical Bring in 'da Noise/Bring in 'da Funk.