Image: Left/Wikipedia/Right/NPS
Martin Luther King Jr birth home, Atlanta, the two-storey house at 501 Auburn Avenue is where the civil rights leader was born on 15 January 1929 and lived for the first twelve years of his life. On 25 November 1926, Christine married a minister named Michael Luther King at her father’s church. Reverend Williams died of a heart attack in the house on 21 March 1931. His wife later died of a heart attack too, and the King family then moved to a new home at 193 Boulevard.
The King Centre said the household was larger than one family. It stands in the residential section of Sweet Auburn, the centre of Black Atlanta. Its frame construction, Queen Anne style and its place on Auburn Avenue, the street of his family’s church and the King Centre, shape the entire visit. Instead of Christine leaving, her new husband moved into the family home with her parents. Martin Luther King Jr lived there with his grandparents, parents and siblings, as well as other relatives and boarders. The old house stayed in the family and became a rental property.
Today the property operates as a historic site, and visitors can enter the home only on a guided tour led by a park ranger.
