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Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park

Atlanta | Georgia

What We Did
Linked key properties in Martin Luther King Jr.’s childhood neighborhood to create a cohesive historic park.

Our Goal
Preserve Martin Luther King Jr.’s history and legacy for the public to experience for years to come.

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An african-american woman holding two children in front of a house.

Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park by the Numbers

20+

Years of park development

Properties acquired

1M+

Visitors annually

Preserving MLK’s Origin Story

Public lands deliver an obvious benefit of physical space for everyone to enjoy. But when an important piece of history is woven into the picture, the meaningfulness and spirituality of that land increase exponentially. Exhibit A: Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park.

Trust for Public Land’s work here began in the early 1980s, shortly after the area was designated a National Historic Site. At the time, the National Park Service (NPS) owned no land or buildings. The King family had granted NPS access to the home where Dr. King was born, but the surrounding community was at risk, as urban renewal projects threatened to swallow up the area.

Members of Congress asked Trust for Public Land to help acquire and preserve the buildings around King’s childhood home. Preserving these buildings would allow NPS to tell the full story of Dr. King’s life by allowing visitors to experience the community as he would have remembered it.

Trust For Public Land quickly purchased five well-worn, single-family houses near the King home, saving them from demolition. The historic houses were restored and became the building blocks of the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park.

Over 20 years, Trust for Public Land has helped purchase more than a dozen properties—expanding the footprint and presence of the park. One of those properties was an abandoned factory, which saw a particularly moving transformation into a visitor center just in time for the 1996 Olympic Games. The property also allowed the creation of a trail that seamlessly connects the park with the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library and Museum.

Today, more than a million visitors a year tour the park and the nearby King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, experiencing public land in a way that digs far deeper than anything physical—uniquely demonstrating the emotional and spiritual benefits that lands can provide.

About the Project

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How Preserving Civil Rights History Shapes Today’s Fight for Racial Justice

Judy Forte says there are many people who don’t know about the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. “We are taught certain facts in our classrooms, at home, and in our communities about Dr. King’s life,” she says. “But a lot of times people are just unaware of the details that make Dr. King human.”

Forte should know. As the longtime superintendent at the Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta, she’s charged with taking great care of the facts of his life—whether identifying the historically accurate shade of paint on the wall inside sanctuary where Dr. King preached his first sermon, or listening intently to the living legends of the movement who share their own stories and evolving wisdom with the hundreds of thousands who visit the park each year. “I’ve seen it so many times: when our visitors leave the park, they depart with a fuller, more accurate understanding the significant role Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. played in the American civil rights movement,” Forte says.

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Where MLK's Story Begins

Auburn Avenue—known colloquially as “Sweet Auburn”—is the birthplace of Martin Luther King Jr. and where he spent the first 12 years of his life. TPL helped preserve the area’s architecture and character so visitors can experience the neighborhood as Dr. King would have remembered it, connecting them more deeply to his legacy.

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What the Land Holds

This July 4 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the United States’ Declaration of Independence. Such anniversaries are not meant only for celebration. They’re moments of reckoning—opportunities to ask whether we’ve been worthy stewards of what we inherited.

For the first 125 years or so, as Americans depleted local resources, they’d simply move a bit farther west to extract more. But by the turn of the 20th century, this paradigm of westward expansion—a move that pushed Indigenous peoples, the original stewards of these lands, out—reached its limit at the Pacific Ocean. Bison that once roamed the Great Plains by the millions had been reduced to mere thousands. What once felt infinite and everlasting proved finite and ephemeral. It was in that moment, amid the excesses of the Gilded Age, that the American conservation movement was born.

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The Parks & Affordable Housing Guidebook

As we commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States this July, the nation’s parks and green spaces will take center stage. They’ll host outdoor concerts, parades, fireworks, and jamborees, connecting people to the great outdoors and to each other while they pay homage to what many consider to be the world’s oldest continuous democracy. Naturally, American history will loom large during this semiquincentennial year: the Revolutionary War that gave rise to these United States, of course, but also the generations of people, movements, innovations, conflicts, and acts of courage that have shaped the nation since. America’s story includes moments of extraordinary achievement and chapters of profound injustice, cultural milestones and scientific breakthroughs, struggles for freedom and equality, and our ongoing effort to build a more perfect union. Telling that complete and inclusive story of America—including through our national parks and historic sites—strengthens our public memory and national identity. Americans across geographies and political affiliations agree. They’re unequivocal in their desire to see the full arc of the nation’s history on display in their public parks and historic sites. New polling commissioned by Trust for Public Land (TPL) and conducted by YouGov found that: 88 percent of Americans—including the vast majority of Republican and Democratic voters— agree it’s important to preserve historical and cultural landmarks in outdoor spaces that tell the full American story, even and especially the difficult chapters, such as slavery and the mistreatment of Native Americans. 85 percent agree that national parks, public lands, and natural landscapes are something they are proud of about the United States today. 83 percent agree that outdoor public spaces are among the most important elements of their communities’ identity. 75 percent say they want parks and public spaces to do more to reflect shared history and culture through signage, programming, and interpretation. “At a moment when our country faces division, parks and public lands remain a unifying force—places where communities come together, history is remembered, and our shared story is made tangible,” said Dr. Carrie Besnette Hauser, the president and CEO of TPL. “As we reflect on America’s 250th anniversary, these spaces remind us of who we are and who we can become.” Particularly at a time when foundational parts of our nation’s history are being targeted for erasure, we must safeguard landmarks and the milestones that hold our ever-growing story of America. Trust for Public Land is proud to have helped protect and preserve many such sites over the past 50 years, including a few described below that demonstrate two things: the power of place in producing an honest accounting of the nation’s triumphs and failures and what we stand to lose if we discontinue or diminish our tradition of conservation. The Organization of American Historians recently put it this way: “Historical knowledge is a shared civic resource and a bedrock of accountability.” Get the Report
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Preserving Black History and Culture

From reconnecting tribes and Indigenous communities to their ancestral lands to preserving the cultural sites tied to Black American history, we’re dedicated to building a more equitable and inclusive future—starting with the outdoors.

Explore Our Black History and Culture Work