The Civil Rights Heritage Center — a museum in the building it documents

Center formed 2000 — opened in the Engman Natatorium, May 2010

The center: The Indiana University South Bend Civil Rights Heritage Center was formed in 2000 "to preserve the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement and the history of racial struggles and extraordinary achievements of local citizens," in its archives' words. Its defining achievement is its home. The Engman Public Natatorium on West Washington Street, the city's first municipal swimming pool, had barred Black swimmers outright from 1922 to 1936 and segregated them by day until 1950, then stood vacant from its 1978 closing — the desegregation campaign against it is Black History's record. Beginning in 2005 the Center led the partnership — IU South Bend, the South Bend Heritage Foundation and the City of South Bend — that transformed the derelict pool building into the Center's home.

The museum in the pool: The new center opened in May 2010. Its displays walk visitors through the building's own history, from its 1922 opening as a segregated facility to its integration; a peace garden grows where the pool was, and a sign by the garden states the building's standing in the city's own words: "This is the last building standing that tells the story of segregation in South Bend." The Center holds permanent and temporary exhibitions, gives tours of the local civil rights record, and keeps the South Bend Civil Rights History collection — the documents, photographs and testimony of the movement here — in the IU South Bend archives. IU South Bend, which had leased the building since the renovation, bought it outright; the purchase was completed in early 2020, making the once-segregated pool the university's permanent property and the center's permanent home.

Sources:

1. Indiana University Archives and IU South Bend Libraries — the South Bend Civil Rights History collection and the Center's formation in 2000, its mission, the natatorium partnership from 2005, and the May 2010 opening with its tours and exhibitions.
2. Indiana University News (26 February 2020) — the university's purchase of the Engman Natatorium as the Center's permanent home, completed the month before.
3. Visit South Bend Mishawaka, Civil Rights Heritage Center — the natatorium's rebirth in 2010, the displays walking through its history from 1922, and the peace garden and its sign.
4. The Black History record of this history — the natatorium, 1922–1978, and the desegregation campaign.