After our wedding, Kim and I took a roadtrip across the South to visit a bunch of national parks as part of our quest. I commented last month that one of the benefits of our quest was that it brought us to see some really cool places that we otherwise wouldn’t have.
One of those pleasant surprises was the Martin Luther King Jr National Historic Site in Atlanta. The park seeks to preserve important pieces of the Sweet Auburn neighborhood of Atlanta where King grew up and lived. We took the tour of the King Birth Home, checked out the Historic Fire Station No 6, and the Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Those were certainly cool to see, but the visitor center and the King Center (along with the Tomb) were definitely the unexpected surprises of the visit. The visitor center had some very moving displays and multimedia related to both King’s work and social movements in general. The King Center displayed some of King’s personal affects, including such gems as his Nobel Peace Prize and personal bible.
It’s great that the National Park Service has been able to preserve this important history. If you’re near Atlanta, you should really take some time to see it.
On a final note, it’s probably best that King didn’t grow up in Arizona – who knows if we’d be celebrating his life and work today. Have a great MLK Day.
Note: Despite it being 18 months since the trip, I’ve yet to post any pictures of the site. I’ll try to cull through and post them in the next few weeks.