Staying Fit
Martin Luther King Jr., especially as an adult, was not a man who stayed in one place too long.
An Atlanta teenager and student at historically black Morehouse College, he spent two summers working in tobacco fields near Simsbury, Connecticut — his first taste of a life without Jim Crow laws. After earning a bachelor's degree from Morehouse, he moved to Upland, Pennsylvania, for his bachelor of divinity degree and later earned his doctorate at Boston University.
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The success of the Montgomery, Alabama, bus boycott, which King helped lead, propelled the Baptist minister throughout the United States and to at least 20 countries around the world in his quest to end racial discrimination.
King's admirers have many opportunities to follow the civil rights leader's journeys in the United States. Here are nine spots where you can start your trek.
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1. Atlanta, Georgia
Thousands of funeral marchers gathered April 9, 1968, outside Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta after services for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
BETTMANN ARCHIVE VIA GETTY IMAGES
Site: Ebenezer Baptist Church
Location: 407 Auburn Ave. NE. King and his wife, Coretta Scott King, are buried behind the King Center in the same block; one block east is the home where he was born.
Then: On May 3, 1936, King was baptized after the church's two-week annual revival. He was ordained there on Feb. 25, 1948, upon the recommendation of his father, and served as associate pastor.
On Feb. 7, 1960, after more than five years at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, he returned to Ebenezer as co-pastor with his father so he could be closer to the Atlanta headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which he cofounded. He remained co-pastor until he was killed.
In 2011, the National Park Service completed the second phase of restoration to Atlanta’s historic Ebenezer Baptist Church building.
RAYMOND BOYD, MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES VIA GETTY IMAGES
Now: The original Ebenezer Baptist Church building is part of the 38-acre Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park. The National Park Service completed a two-part, 10-year restoration of the church in 2011.
In 1999, the congregation of Ebenezer Baptist Church constructed a new building across the street. The church has more than 6,000 members.
2. Dublin, Georgia
The cornices and arch windows are gone from the corner of West Jackson and South Jefferson streets in downtown Dublin, Georgia, but would have been what Martin Luther King Jr. saw in his April 1944 visit.
COURTESY OF VISIT DUBLIN GA
Site: First African Baptist Church
Location: 405 Telfair St. A small city of about 16,000 residents, Dublin is about halfway between Atlanta and Savannah, Georgia.
Then: On April 17, 1944, at the Colored Elks Clubs of Georgia state convention, King, then 15, gave his first public speech, called "The Negro and the Constitution." He participated in an oratorical essay contest that the Elks had sponsored — and won.
But on the bus trip back home that night, the driver ordered the teen and his female teacher to give up their seats to white passengers. “So we stood up in the aisle for the 90 miles to Atlanta,” he told Alex Haley in a 1965 Playboy interview. “That night will never leave my memory. It was the angriest I have ever been in my life."
First African Baptist Church in Dublin, Georgia, looks much the same today as when Martin Luther King Jr. won an oratorical contest there on April 17, 1944.
COURTESY OF VISIT DUBLIN GA
Now: The church, which was founded in 1867 and is the oldest black church in Dublin, has services at 8 and 10:45 a.m. each Sunday as well as weekly 7 p.m. Bible study. Each year on the second Sunday of April, the church and community sponsor a speech contest in the tradition of the Elks’ competition.
Across the street from the church is the city's Martin Luther King, Jr. Monument Park, where you can hear King's first speech and see Atlanta artist Corey Barksdale's colorful mural and Freedom Ascension sculpture. Both sites are part of a walking tour with more than 70 stops in Dublin.
3. Upland, Pennsylvania
Site: Crozer Theological Seminary
Location: 1 Seminary Ave. Upland is just north of the Philadelphia suburb of Chester.
This postcard of Crozer Theological Seminary in Upland, Pennsylvania, was printed around 1910. Its Old Main building looked largely the same when Martin Luther King was a divinity student there from 1948 to 1951.
Courtesy of Archives & Special Collections, McNairy Library, Millersville University
Then: On May 8, 1951, after a three-year course of study, King graduated as class president and valedictorian with a bachelor of divinity degree from the American Baptist seminary. When he started in fall 1948, he was one of only 11 black students at the school.
