Beside Centennial Olympic Park rises a building shaped like two clasped hands, designed by architect Philip Freelon and opened to the public in June 2014. The center holds the papers and personal effects of Martin Luther King Jr., including his sermon notes, correspondence, and travel documents — a physical archive of one of the most important lives in American history. Its permanent exhibition on the American Civil Rights Movement uses immersive techniques to put visitors inside the experience of the movement: there is a lunch counter simulation where you place your hands on a countertop and experience the sonic environment of a sit-in, with insults screamed in your ears and the counter vibrating.
The center also connects the American Civil Rights story to the broader global human rights movement, examining struggles for dignity and equality on every continent. The building itself is shaped to evoke two hands clasped together, a gesture of solidarity rendered in glass and stone. That it sits next door to the Georgia Aquarium and around the corner from CNN Center in a tourist district might seem incongruous — but Atlanta has always been a city of incongruities, and placing civil rights history at the center of its commercial showcase is, in its way, exactly right.