In August of 1997, then Alabama State University president, Dr. William H. Harris, assembled selected staff, faculty, and administrators to determine the feasibility of creating a center for civil rights research. Out of that meeting, Dr. Janice Franklin was selected to serve as project director. The committee she headed quickly united behind a vision to build a center that would serve as a clearinghouse for information on the role of Montgomery, Alabama and Alabama State University in the modern civil rights movement. The Committee also sought to preserve and disseminate information reflective of the political culture, economic conditions, and history of African-Americans in Montgomery. Although the focus was on Montgomery, the steering committee envisioned a larger national scope that would allow distance access to on-site digitized resources via the Internet. The National Center set out to amass under one umbrella the disparate historical library collections and multimedia materials on civil rights and African-American culture.

In 2000, the National Endowment for the Humanities awarded Alabama State University one of seven $500,000 Challenge Grants. This money was to be used to build a two-million-dollar endowment. The university responded by officially establishing the National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African-American Culture. The Center was successfully endowed in 2004.