Civil Rights Center former executive director speaks out in first extended interview since firing

In less than a month, we’ll celebrate the 55th anniversary of the beginning of the sit-in movement in Greensboro. It was the time when four North Carolina A&T State University students sat down at the segregated lunch counter in the Woolworth’s Five and Dime Store in downtown Greensboro and stayed there. Many believe it started the Civil Rights Movement across the south.

Up until about two months ago, Lacy Ward ran the International Civil Rights Center and Museum that sits in that former Woolworth’s store and commemorates — among other things — what happened there in 1960. The museum has struggled financially since it opened in 2010. Ward was hired to turn things around in May 2014, but was fired in early November 2014.

In his first extended on-camera interview since his termination, Ward said he really started to feel resistance from the museum’s co-founders, Skip Alston and Earl Jones, along with their allies on the board of directors when — in late 2014 — he began to implement three specific recommendations of a fundraising consultant (Alexander Haas): term limits for board members, term limits for officers and financial contributions from 100 percent of the board members.

Ward said he felt those three “reforms” were critical in establishing relations with a broader range of donors whose money would be crucial for the museum’s future success....