Journey to Justice are a charity whose primary aim is to inspire people to take action for social justice through learning from the human rights movement. Members of youth organisation Space 2 visited Newcastle City Library and Discovery Museum’s archives to learn about local social justice.

In all my life I have never learned so much about social justice and how important it is.

24-year-old project participant

The participants met with US Civil Rights Movement expert, Professor Brian Ward to hear about Martin Luther King’s 1957 visit to Newcastle University to receive his honorary doctorate.

Activists and art practitioners facilitated further sessions to teach participants social justice movement songs and print-making skills to create zines – easy-to-reproduce texts and images often used to display social justice messages.

Young people were trained in oral history to interview five people who were involved in social justice campaigns in Tyneside and two Newcastle University graduates who met Martin Luther King in 1957.

Material captured by the group was edited into audio files and became part of the Journey to Justice traveling exhibition about the US civil rights movement and its links to the UK. Over 3,000 people visited the exhibition at the Discovery Museum and since then it has travelled to other UK cities. A small display was also created for the Great North Museum about Martin Luther King’s visit.