Fifty years after the civil rights movement, Mississippi has become the first state to open a museum commemorating the struggle for equality for African-Americans. Located in Jackson, the museum has eight galleries that bring to life historical periods like the Atlantic slave trade, the Civil War, the Jim Crow era, and the 1960s. Visitors can experience some of the more harrowing moments of the civil rights era by walking into a jail cell where some of the Freedom Riders were imprisoned, and hearing sound effects like police shooting at and unleashing dogs on black protesters. The location of the museum is noteworthy because Mississippi was the site of some of the worst violence against African-Americans, according to Alvin Tillery, a professor of political science and African-American history at Northwestern University in Illinois. “To have this museum there,” Tillery says, “is an incredible cultural moment.”