Growing up, Dr. Karcheik Sims-Alvarado never went to a museum.

Instead, the museum came to her. Her mother, Mildred Sims, created a museum-like home for her children that contained a collection of murals all throughout the 15-room house located at 105 Clark Street.

The Atmore native and Atlanta, Ga. resident is using the inspiration she received as a child today as she will be serving as the official Civil Rights Historian and Exhibition consultant with the Nobel Museum in Stockholm, Sweden, in two weeks. She is also the author of Atlanta and the Civil Rights Movement, 1944-1968.

Sims-Alvarado will be at the Nobel Museum for the opening of an exhibition she worked alongside Curator Ashley Woods. The exhibition, “A Right to Freedom — Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” sheds light on how King fought for equitable conditions and for the rights of African Americans employing nonviolent direct-action tactics.

The Nobel Museum showcases information about the Nobel Prize and Nobel prizewinners, as well as information about the founder of the prize, Alfred Nobel.

Sims-Alvarado will also be present for a teacher’s summit, serving on a panel alongside other Nobel Peace recipients.

“The Nobel Museum is located in Stockholm, Sweden, and is separate from the Nobel Foundation, which is in Oslo,” she said. “Every year, the Nobel Museum presents an annual exhibition. Considering this is the 50th year since King’s death, the museum decided to honor him. He is the most lauded Nobel Prize recipient.”

Sims-Alvarado said the exhibit not only honors King, but is an avenue to discuss how Atlanta, along with global leaders influenced the civil rights leader.

“In this exhibit, we wanted to shed light on the making of King. Like many children coming of age in the Jim Crow South, he was influenced by the activism of Black Atlantans that ensued after World War II. King was inspired not only by global proponents of peace but also civil rights leaders belonging to his neighborhood. We hope this exhibit will inspire younger people today,” she said.

Sims-Alvarado said she got the opportunity to be a consultant after meeting Woods through Don Rivers, the personal assistant to Dr. C.T. Vivian. Vivian was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama.

Sims-Alvarado said Woods was in Atlanta looking at conducting research on King. The timing was just right as her book had just hit shelves.

“I was also working on curating an exhibition of my own, which is a 4-mile outdoor photo exhibition,” she said, adding that the 4-mile exhibit is the longest photo exhibition on civil rights in the world. “When Woods mentioned he was looking for a historian, the associate of Dr. Vivian recommended me because of my scholarship and professional experience of working in academe and with museums.”

When asked what a curator does for a museum, Sims-Alvarado said a curator is the manager and presenter of cultural collections. In museums, he/she is the narrator of a story.

“You’re telling the story in a visual way,” she said. “When you curate, you’re pulling together visuals of various mediums, i.e. fine art, photography, film, etc, to present a particular narrative for the public. For the Nobel exhibit, curator Ashley Woods wanted to emphasize the making of Dr. King.” She continued,

“When I served as the curator of my exhibition in Atlanta, I wanted to emphasize the activism of Atlanta 20 years prior to the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.” She said, “We’re talking about the same thing, but in different spaces.”

Sims-Alvarado received a bachelor’s degree in Mass Media Arts and a master’s degree in African and African-American Studies from Clark Atlanta University, along with a Ph.D. in History from Georgia State University. She is currently pursuing a master’s degree in museum studies from Harvard University. As well, she is a multi-recipient of the prestigious National Endowment for Humanities Summer Institute Fellowship with the Georgia Historical Society and the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University.

During college, Sims-Alvarado told herself that she didn’t want to be labeled as a civil rights historian, however, through people she met and professional opportunities, it was made clear that that’s exactly what she needed to be.

She said the focus of how to tell the long history of the Civil Rights Movement is what led her to pursue this line of work.

Additionally, a dream she had in 2012 helped her decision, too.

“I long desired to go to Egypt to study as an Egyptologist or as an archeologist,” Sims-Alvarado said. “I had this dream one night. I was in my mother’s backyard when a group of elderly African Americans came to me in my dream. They didn’t say one word.” “They walked to my mother’s backyard, picked up a number of random objects, and brought them to me. Then, the elders would leave, return, and drop more objects at my feet,” she said. “Each time they returned, the bigger the pile of artifacts became. I asked, ‘Why are you giving me all these things?’ Then when I woke up, I realized that I didn’t need to go to Egypt to unearth history. The history that I was called to document was right at my back door. History was right in my own backyard and the ancestors are in my life to help me uncover it.”

In fact, growing up in Atmore contributed a great deal to her pursuing a career in history, she said.

“I was born in 1972,” she said. “I left in ‘92 to go to college. Growing up, it was interesting yet not unusual. From 8 a.m. until 5 p.m., adults went to work and children attended school in integrated settings. After 5 p.m., everyone would do in different directions. This was our social norm.

“Even though we lived in these different racial spheres, there were these moments where people came together and developed relationships together,” she said. “We crossed those racial and geographical lines. We crossed the railroad tracks, which in many rural and urban cities helped to establish racial demarcation lines. Growing up, in my household, everyone had relationships with blacks, whites and Native Americans. For my family, we developed really meaningful relationships with multiple races. You would think that this sort of social interaction  between multiple races could only be fostered in a cosmopolitan city, but for our household, we experienced that in Atmore.”

Sims-Alvarado said growing up, she received a lot of support in Atmore.

“Forming relationships with different groups is why I study and work in the field of civil rights,” she said. “What we are generally talking about is treating people with dignity and as humans. Our parents espoused the tenants of civil and human rights and believed in treating everyone equally while expecting and demanding the same in return. They believed we should all be allowed to live our fullest lives void of any prejudice. Me working in civil rights has a lot to do with my upbringing.”