MEMPHIS (AP) — The National Civil Rights Museum is scheduled to reopen next month after it was closed late last year during a surge in coronavirus cases in Memphis, Tennessee.

The museum said it is scheduled to reopen March 1. Restrictions imposed by local health officials after a rise in COVID-19 cases and deaths led to the museum's closure in December.

Based in Memphis, the museum chronicles the U.S. civil rights movement. It is located at the site of the former Lorraine Motel, where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was fatally shot on April 4, 1968. The civil rights leader was staying at the motel after coming to Memphis to support a sanitation workers strike.

Guided tours will be limited for at least the first few weeks after the reopening, the museum said. Interpretive talks will be staged outdoors.

Staff and visitors will be required to wear face masks and staff will undergo daily temperature checks.