By Bartholomew Sullivan - The Commercial Appeal -

WASHINGTON -- The National Civil Rights Museum has received a $750,000 challenge grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities that will guarantee it as a permanent institution in Memphis' future, its director says.

The money, which must be matched three-for-one by private contributions, will create the museum's first permanent endowment and a source of income for educational programming. The money is separate from the ongoing capital fundraising campaign -- nearing $20 million -- for improvements to the physical space and exhibits on Mulberry Street in Downtown Memphis.

"This will literally be the first time the museum has ever had a formal endowment program," said executive director Beverly Robertson. "An endowment allows us to sustain the institution regardless of who the executive director or the board is.

"It will allow this museum to have a life beyond today."

Robertson said the museum is currently in the "silent phase of a fairly comprehensive campaign" to build what she hopes will be an endowment of $10 million or more.

Judy Peiser, founder and director of the Center for Southern Folklore, said the NEH grant is "huge."

"For the Endowment to see the importance of the Civil Rights Museum as a national treasure that every day teaches all people from all cultures about civil rights and its importance is amazing," Peiser said. "Without an endowment, all of us -- every institution -- is at risk."

J.R. "Pitt" Hyde, who has served on the board and raised money for the museum from its inception, called the grant "a huge endorsement for the program."

"It's amazingly significant -- such an endorsement of the museum to have the NEH make such a sizable grant. They seldom make grants of this scale," Hyde said.

"Of course the Civil Rights Museum plays a critical role for Memphis and for the country. In Memphis, our original objective was to take a tragic site and turn it into something positive for our community. We've accomplished that over the years."

Herb Hilliard, the museum board's current chairman, called the grant "a tremendous start for us," and said it will raise the museum's profile. He said the stature of the people the museum honors with its Freedom Awards each year -- he mentioned past honorees Nelson Mandela, Colin Powell and Mikhail Gorbachev -- already gives the museum an international standing.

Next year will be the 20th anniversary of the conversion of the Lorraine Motel -- where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stayed on his last visit to Memphis and where he was slain on April 4, 1968 -- to a nationally recognized shrine in his honor.

A group of prominent Memphians, including lawyer D'Army Bailey, purchased the structure in 1984. Reached in New Orleans, Bailey said the grant is "an extraordinary affirmation of the historical importance of the civil rights struggle as told at the Civil Rights Museum."

Bailey said the Endowment's support "will be readily matched by philanthropic supporters and movement supporters not only in Tennessee but across the country." He added that the museum's endowment will let it "maintain independence of thought and programming that is so important for the struggle for human justice."

Daphene R. McFerren, director of the Benjamin L. Hooks Institute for Social Change at the University of Memphis, said the grant is a testament to the work the museum has already done as an education center and tourist attraction, and called the news "absolutely fabulous."

The museum is the depository of police and evidence files regarding the King assassination as well as artifacts providing a full history of the civil rights movement, including the work of Mohandas Gandhi in India. Since it opened to the public in September 1991, it has been visited by more than 5 million people, including presidents and foreign heads of state.

The office of U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., noted that the Memphis museum was one of only five in the country to get what it called a "prestigious" grant.

Robertson said she understands it will be difficult to raise the matching funds in a down economy, but said the recognition by the NEH will provide a major lift.

"People who believe in the work we are doing and who see the NEH has made such a commitment will certainly be interested in joining us in trying to meet the challenge," she said.

-- Bartholomew Sullivan: (202) 408-2726