Stax launched and supported the careers of artists such as Otis Redding, Isaac Hayes, the Staple Singers, Sam & Dave, Booker T. & the M.G.

The Soulsville Foundation announced in August 2022 that its new President and CEO is now Pat Mitchell Worley, former Stax Music Academy Executive Director and longtime cohost of the internationally syndicated blues radio show, Beale Street Caravan.

By 1998, the neighborhood had also fallen into a state of blight, and a group of concerned Memphis business people, anonymous philanthropists, and former Stax Records artists spearheaded a nonprofit revitalization effort for the area, which included a museum that would be a shrine to Stax Records and all American soul music, as well as a music school for urban youth.

Some of the standout exhibits include an authentic circa-1906 Mississippi Delta church from Mississippi, reconstructed in the museum to help show the gospel roots of soul music; the Soul Train dance floor, Isaac Hayes' restored custom-built 1972 gold-trimmed, peacock-blue Cadillac Eldorado; and a near-exact recreation of the original Stax Records recording Studio A.

Visitors are treated to vintage video footage of non-Stax artists such as Aretha Franklin, Al Green, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Ann Peebles, The Jackson Five, Patti LaBelle, Parliament-Funkadelic, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Ike & Tina Turner, and others.

In addition to being a world-class tourist destination that helps fuel the Memphis tourism economy, the Stax Museum is a community-focused organization that offers free programming throughout the year to residents of the Soulsville U.S.A. neighborhood and the general public.