The next time you or anyone in your family is in the vicinity of Greensboro, North Carolina, I urge you to pay a visit to the International Civil Rights Center & Museum.

During its first six months of operation, the museum, which commemorates the nonviolent sit-in protests of the 1960s that helped to spark the nation's civil rights movement, has had less attendees than expected. The museum is located in the Woolworth's building where four students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University helped to spark sit-ins throughout the South by defiantly sitting at the lunch counter where management refused to serve them.

What started out as a protest by four students-- Ezell A. Blair Jr. (also known as Jibreel Khazan), David Leinhail Richmond, Joseph Alfred McNeil, and Franklin Eugene McCain-- ended up with over 300 students protesting at the site. Soon, students throughout the South began holding their own sit-ins. Soon enough, the lunch counter had been integrated.

"We had no notion that we'd even be served," McCain told the Washington Post. "What we wanted to do was serve notice, more than anything else, that we were going to be about trying to achieve some of the rights and privileges we were due as citizens of this country."

The media picked up the story as protests began to spread. Four years later, The Civil Rights Act of 1964, made segregation in public places illegal.

The original lunch counter where the four young men helped to ignite the push for civil rights is still in place along with other interesting exhibits. What's missing is the visitors, some say.



Museum planners expected 200,000 visitors the first year but have realized only 40,000 during six months of operation. Only about 3,000 of those visitors were from out of the area.

Melvin "Skip" Alston, the chairman of the museum's management committee and one of the co-founders, told Aol BlackVoices in an interview that the number of visitors was actually around 50,000 and that he is excited by the great start given that full marketing efforts have yet to kick in.

"We never expected 200,000 people the first year. That number is based on a few years down the road with people planning trips to the museum. We are talking about the family reunions and the sororities. It's just a matter of time," Alston said.

In the coming year, there will be an effort to bring students from a 75-mile radius surrounding the museum as well as different church events every Sunday. Visitors from outside the area will increase as well.

"We have 50,000 new boosters to spread the word and no where to go but up," Alston said.

That doesn't mean that support of the effort can't begin now. It is important to preserve, memorialize and pass on these important events in American history so that future generations can use the lessons they provide now.

Among the lessons provided by the museum are bravery, persistence and that a few determined people can have a major impact.

The fact that African-Americans in this country couldn't do something as basic as order a cup of coffee from a major corporate chain without facing discrimination should not be lost on this generation or future generations.

Young people today may see that we have a black president and think that all of our racial problems are solved. How informative it must be to learn that just 50 years ago, African-Americans were regularly and legally denied basic civil rights.

If museums covering topics such as civil rights lacks visitors, then there will be a reluctance for donors to provide support to similar projects around the country. The Negro Leagues Museum in Kansas City is also struggling.

"We should support these programs so future generations yet unborn know about the struggle we went through 100 years from now. They should know how many people died so they can have what they have today," said Alston. "They need to know so they won't disrespect their grandparents because they understand the contributions they made not just so that they could sit at a lunch counter, but so that they could own one."

The good news is that Alston is optomistic about the museum's future. But that doesn't mean we should not take an easy but important step in supporting these institutions by simply going for a visit.

"This is a way of learning from history so that 100 years from now we won't fall into the same traps." Alston said.