The National Civil Rights
Museum, located at the Lorraine Motel, Memphis, Tenn., where Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr., was tragically assassinated April 4, 1968, is the world's first
and only comprehensive overview of the civil rights movement in exhibit form.
The Museum's goal is to instill in viewers an appreciation of the history,
struggle, and the important events and personalities of the movement. Opened
on September 28, 1991, the National Civil Rights Museum houses 10,000 sq.
ft. of exhibitions, an auditorium, a courtyard for dramatic presentations,
a changing gallery, a museum gift shop, and administrative offices.
These
photos to the left and above show the balcony to the rooms 306 and 307 where
Dr. King was staying.
Below is a marker at the site placed by the Southern
Christian Leadership Conference.
In Atlanta, Ga. mourners
kept an all-night
vigil outside the Ebenezer Baptist Church
waiting to view the body of slain civil rights
leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Thousands later filed past the bier where he
was buried in a cemetery on the South Side.
April 14, 1968.
Inspired by the belief that love and peaceful protest could eliminate social injustice, Martin Luther King, Jr., became one of the outstanding black leaders in the United States. He aroused whites and blacks alike to protest racial discrimination, poverty, and war.
A champion of nonviolent
resistance to oppression, he was awarded the Nobel peace prize in1964. Martin
Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta, Ga., on Jan. 15, 1929. His father,
Martin, Sr., was the pastor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, a black congregation.
His mother, Alberta Williams King, was a schoolteacher. Martin had an older
sister, Christine, and a younger brother, Alfred Daniel. Martin encountered
racism at an early age. When he was 6, his friendship with two white playmates
was cut short by their parents. A bright student, he was admitted to
Morehouse College at 15, without completing high school. He decided to become
a minister and at 18 was ordained in his father's church. After graduating
from Morehouse in 1948, he entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester,
Pa. He was the valedictorian of his class in 1951 and won a graduate fellowship.
At Boston University he received a Ph.D. in theology in 1955. In Boston King
met Coretta Scott. They were married in 1953 and had two sons, Martin Luther
III and Dexter Scott, and two daughters, Yolanda Denise and Bernice Albertine.
Back to Springfield Public Schools
.