Since the inception of Alabama’s new immigration law, many believe voting rights have been challenged and for the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute, it wants the public to remember the struggle.

NVRMI will hold an unveiling of its new exhibits Saturday, Dec. 3 at 6 p.m. Additions also include new displays and galleries of prominent civil rights icons and historical figures and a revamped website. The event, which also includes a reception, is free to the public.

NVRMI board member Carolyn Gaines-Varner said Saturday’s event is imperative.

“There’s a real attack on voting rights throughout the country … old battles and new challenges,” Varner said. “This is an institute where we need people to continue to understand the importance (of voting) — we take it for granted. Our voting rights effect everything we do and everything we have.”

The museum will also hold a special ceremony to honor the work of Selma natives Bruce Boynton, a lawyer and the son of civil rights heroine Amelia Boynton-Robinson, and Lauretta Wimberly, founding member of NVRMI.

“We’re going to take (the) footprints of Wimberly and Boynton … their footprints will later be added to the museum (with the footprints of other civil rights foot soldiers),” Varner said.

Following the unveiling, Boynton and Wimberly will be honored during NVRMI’s annual “membership banquet” at 7 p.m. inside the Slavery and Civil War Museum on Water Avenue. The cost is $25 and includes museum membership.

“Each year as a part of the membership banquet, we honor who we call ‘living legends,’” Varner said. “Bruce Boynton was trailblazing of the ‘freedom riders’ … and Wimberly served for a year as a tax collector for Dallas County — the first black woman official appointed in the county.”

Wimberly, who received degrees from Alabama State University and Atlanta University, began her teaching career in 1955. Wimberly has worked with the Dallas County Commission, was appointed as vice president of student affairs at Selma University and was a founding member of the NVRMI and Alabama Historical Commission’s Black Historical Council.

Receiving his law degree from Howard University, Boynton became the first documented lunch counter sit-in protestor for two decades when he refused to move to a “colored” section at the Trailways bus terminal in Virginia. Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall represented Boynton in this case called Boynton vs. Virginia (1960), which became a landmark constitutional case, and held that racial segregation in public transportation was illegal. Boynton later practiced law in Selma, helping to defend poor blacks who couldn’t afford attorneys.