In 1994, as a reporter for a NPR station, Museum Without Walls Executive Director, Suzzanne Lacey was assigned to cover the 30th anniversary bus tour of the Freedom Riders. The Freedom Riders were a group of young people who desegregated the bus lines throughout the South in the early 1960's. She found herself with three of the Freedom Riders facing the front of Parchment State Prison in Mississippi. The men spoke with fierce emotion of thirty years earlier when they'd been arrested and forced to sleep on the cold, prison floor. They spoke of being refused nourishment because of the freedom songs they sang to keep their souls strong. It was in this moment that the idea of living history as an educational tool began to take shape.

Three years later on a trip to Poland, she visited Auschwitz. Suzzanne was unprepared for what would happen when she walked through the gates. Those who visit are confronted with the vastness of the Holocaust history. The hundreds of acres and empty buildings are stark and haunting. The walls of the deserted barracks speak of the injustices of the past. There were stories to be told, stories that would not only teach young adults about our intolerant and racist past, but would engage them in discussions on how to prevent an intolerant and racist future.

Museum Without Walls has grown out of these experiences. The program offers similar opportunities to young people to learn about history by visiting the places where atrocities occurred and by listening to living witnesses. While educational sites represent very different periods in history, they all offer a chance for youth to open a dialogue about hate, history and themselves.