Martin Luther King, Jr. Center

By Lisa Merlini

March 16, 2004

Reported from Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change and Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta:

For four hours, Covering Religion students and professors wander in and out of buildings and exhibits, absorbing the history and heritage the site has to offer. Gloria Rodríguez and Anne Lilburn happen upon the main offices of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, discovering that they are in the midst of a 9-month mobilization project to increase voter registration in Atlanta and the outlying suburban and rural communities. Chris Karmiol speaks with the man who keeps the waters around King's tomb clean (click here for complete story), and I meet three gentlemen who marched with Dr. King. Otherwise, the day has no set schedule, other than a 2:00 p.m. deadline to get back to the bus and head for Marion, Ala. by way of Selma and the Edmund Pettus Bridge, in time for dinner and to hear the peacocks squawking at the Gateway Inn.

On either side of Auburn Avenue, the old (pictured here) and new (pictured below) versions of the Ebenezer Baptist Churches stare at one another, delineating the transition from an what was an active movement to what has largely become a commemorative one. Photo: Anne Lilburn

A man in coveralls stands knee-deep in water, his broom moving to the rhythm of his steps as he traverses the terraced pools, back and forth, wiping away the sediment that has settled overnight on the pool floor. He sweeps the pool everyday, telling Chris Karmiol that he feels this is his calling. His presence is a calming one, one that contrasts with the chatter of schoolchildren passing him on one of the walkways lining the length of the pools, one that draws our attention back to the reason why we as a class have come -- why this center exists in the first place: The tomb of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

The white marble tomb rests on a circular foundation of brick, marked only with his name, the years he lived, 1929 to 1968, and the saying that has become one of those most associated with his name and his memory since his death over 36 years ago, "Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, I'm free at last."

These words punctuated Dr. King's speech from the steps of the Lincoln Monument in August 1963, unifying the Civil Rights Movement on a national level. Dr. King was appointed leader of the Civil Rights Movement in the mid-1950s, as much for his intelligence, spirituality, morals and ethics as for his gifts of rhetoric, eloquence and oratory. He was young, newly married, one month a father, and just ordained pastor of Dexter Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.

The new Ebenezer Baptist Church. Photo: Chris Karmiol

Dr. King never intended to become leader of a nationwide movement, never intended to incur the titles of prophet, hero or martyr that were given him after his death on April 4, 1968. The legacy of his work -- and his words -- speak otherwise here.

On either side of Auburn Avenue, the old and new versions of the Ebenezer Baptist Churches stare at one another, delineating the transition from what was an active movement to what has largely become a commemorative one. The old church, on the northwest corner of Auburn Avenue and Jackson Street, is a simple brick structure with opalescent stained glass windows -- a circular one of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane above the altar -- and a mural of the River Jordan above the baptism pool as its only decorations. This is where Martin Luther King, Sr. preached from 1931 to 1975, and where his father, A.D. Williams, preached from 1894 to 1931. It is also where Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. served as co-pastor from 1960 to 1968. Today it is called Heritage House, where visitors listen to the recorded tenor and power of his voice and words from their seats in the old wooden pews. The new church, Horizon House, is fashioned with a slight resemblance to the sail-motif of Sydney's opera house. It is locked, opening its light-filled, airy sanctuary only for Sunday service, evening prayers or Bible study.

One of the opalescent stained glass windows inside the old Ebenezer Baptist Church. Photo: Anne Lilburn

This past Sunday, Assistant Pastor Williams gave a sermon called "Hope Unfolding." A man on the street asks passersby for help to pay off a summons, and a woman asks for change so she can get a bite to eat that day. Three men, contemporaries of Dr. King, sit on a low wall across the street, asking for little help to alleviate hard times.

According to Griffin Meadows, Billy Pete and Charlie Baker, all 65 years old, "life is better now the world over." They no longer have to ride on the back of the bus, or make sure they are on the right streetcar line. These men all marched with King, and they have broken ribs and limbs to prove it. Meadows plays "We Shall Overcome" on his harmonica, and Baker and Pete indicate where the black and white sections of Atlanta used to be, and where you wouldn't want to set foot, for fear of your life. They remember when shotgun houses stood where the complex now stands, where, "you could throw a brick in the front door and it would go out the back door." And they remember when things started to change.

On January 15, 1982, Coretta Scott King dedicated the Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change Inc., a complex of buildings that includes a Chapel of All Faiths, King's tomb, a Screening Room and the Freedom Center. Across the street, newer buildings house the King National Historic Site.

A statue of Mohandas K. Gandhi stands in the entrance of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center. Gandhi's non-violent philosophy inspired King and the Civil Rights Movement. Photo: Chris Karmiol

Inside the Freedom Center, photographs of Dr. King hang from the ceiling and a stairway leads up to three rooms: One dedicated to Ghandi, another dedicated to Rosa Parks, and the third dedicated to the lives of King and his wife, Coretta. Ghandi's sandals, walking stick, spectacles and a few of his white robes sit next to food plates, prayer beads and a Hindu prayer book, which faces a book of Martin Luther King, Jr. stamps issued in Bombay in 1959. A few of Gandhi's words, "Means and ends are convertible in my philosophy of life" and, "There is no religion higher than truth and righteousness," speak in red from whitewashed canvases.

In the next room, Rosa Parks hangs in portrait across from a brown quilt dedicated to the words and legacy of Dr. King, with photos of her role and work filling the space in between. The King room is bisected: Dr. King on the left, Coretta Scott King on the right. Each wall tells a chronology, and in the middle, personal artifacts from their lives tell of details that might have been otherwise lost. Two near-empty bottles of Aramis cologne, handwritten speeches, cufflinks, one of Gandhi's books, and the key to his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where he was assassinated, stand out among the rest.

Across the street, next to the new church, is the National Historic Site. Sculptured marchers walk down a street in the middle of the room, and four rotundas mark the great events, speeches, words and thoughts of Dr. King's life and of the movement. Screens in each one play a different documentary of his life, showing the movement, the beatings and the resolve of a people tired of bowing down, not willing to give up. It is powerful and stirring, an exhibit that delves deep below the surface of the Martin Luther King we all learned about in grade school.

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