Documenting the Inland Empire's Civil Rights History
Posted by DeannaHendrick on Feb. 22, 2024 / Subscribe
The Inland Empire has a rich and complex civil rights movement that is still growing and thriving today. The Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California (CRIISC), located in Riverside, serving both Riverside and San Bernardino counties, is dedicated to preserving the legacy of Inland Southern California's civil rights history and inspiring the next generation of social justice leaders.
We spoke with Executive Director Sabrina Gonzalez to learn more about the Institute and the importance of messaging and documenting history. Gonzalez shared that the physical space has only been open to the public for a little over a year, but the idea was decades in the making.
What is the history of the Civil Rights Institute of Inland Southern California?
The vision was thought of back in 2006 by cofounders Rose Mayes and Lalit Acharya and developed as a nonprofit in 2012. It has been operating ever since then and doing the work to capture the history and stories of the civil rights movement here in the region. The physical space opened to the public in January of 2022.
CRIISC is a multifunctioning, living enterprise based in history focusing on staying relevant and built for generations to come.
What was important is that we want to stay community-focused; our goal is to inspire people of all ages by lifting up our region's historic and ongoing civil rights stories, fostering advocacy, and building champions of tomorrow.
What does the Institute do?
We are unique and based on three prongs: exhibition center, media center, and diversity center – each serving a crucial role for the community.
The Riverside African American Historical Society’s Exhibition Center has hosted two exhibits, Still I Rise for one year and currently Working Coachella. Both exhibits feature the historical and current civil rights movements here from the region. The Altura Credit Union Media Center hosts our media projects, and we are working to build out our oral history projects to capture the region’s voices. The Bank of America Diversity Center is open for rentals for meetings and events. This center aims to build connection and community and a place to have difficult and meaningful conversations. We also will be building out a Digital Archive Library to ensure our regional history is public facing.
We have a walk of fame outside the center featuring 27 of our regional Civil Rights leaders. There is such a rich civil rights history here, and we take pride in it.
In our first year, we hosted 275 events, and we hope to increase that number this year. We are now building out more programming of our own with our super-engaged board of directors and our very supportive community partners.
How important of a role are communications and messaging for the Institute?
We use CRIISC as a neutral place for discussion. When people see us, they look to us to guide and educate. We intentionally designed the space to be a place to have difficult conversations; these conversations are worth having, and we trust that we can have these conversations in a way that allows us to build and grow and be accountable for the region’s past, present, and future.
We use consistent messaging that the space is a place to remove silos and have open and meaningful discussions, which we hope to lead to change and a space to help heal and move forward.
What is the goal of the Institute?
Our goal is to be a voice of the region; our overall vision is to connect people from all walks of life to stories and share information and personal relationships, making Inland Southern California a center of civil rights and social justice. The best way to do that is by living out our mantra: CRIISC was built for the community, by the community, and will continue to grow with the community.
The Civil Rights Institute of Southern California‘s public hours are Wednesdays through Fridays, 12:00 pm - 5:00 pm, at 3933 Mission Inn Avenue, Suite 103, Riverside, CA 92501. If you are interested in a group tour, please email [email protected] for more details. For more information, please visit: https://www.inlandcivilrights.org/
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