The powerful legacy of Martin Luther King Jr in Atlanta is best discovered through the city’s historic Civil Rights trail. From the Ebenezer Baptist Church to the strategic headquarters at Paschal’s Restaurant, visitors can explore the sites that shaped America’s most important social movement.
Paschal’s Restaurant: The unofficial Civil Rights headquarters
Paschal’s is astonishingly busy, offering unabashed soul food feasting – candied yams, fried chicken, collard greens and cheesy grits – as it has done for decades. The food is good, but it’s not necessarily the reason why Paschal’s has become an Atlanta institution.
In the 1950s and 60s, location and facilities were just as important. It was a short walk from several African-American universities, and had a jazz lounge that could seat 500 people.
MLK’s strategic planning hub
In 1959, one former student asked if he could use the lounge for strategy planning. The student was Martin Luther King Jr, and Paschal’s became the unofficial HQ of the Civil Rights movement.
On an odyssey to learn about MLK in Atlanta, it’s also an indication that the movement wasn’t just about the figureheads. The Paschal brothers didn’t go on marches themselves, but they would pay bonds to get student marchers out of jail.
Why book the Atlanta Black History & Civil Rights Tour?
- 🚐 Travel in an air-conditioned vehicle with pickup in Downtown Atlanta
- 🕑 Half-day experience (approx. 4 hours), available in morning or afternoon sessions
- 🔑 Visit iconic African-American neighborhoods like Sweet Auburn and prominent Civil Rights landmarks
- 🎓 Learn about HBCUs, see Tyler Perry Studios, and explore the city’s rich Black arts and culture scene
- 🚶 Small-group format ensures intimate, personalized storytelling
- 💧 Bottled water provided throughout the tour
Sweet Auburn: MLK’s childhood neighbourhood
They also defied the laws on segregation, allowing whites and blacks to eat together in their restaurant. Behind the scenes assistance and brave symbolic gestures were vitally important in keeping the snowball for change moving.
If you wanted the speeches, though, Martin Luther King Jr was your man. He rose to prominence whilst organising the bus boycotts in Montgomery, Alabama, but he was born in the Sweet Auburn neighbourhood of Atlanta.
A thriving African-American community
Just east of the city centre, Sweet Auburn is a historically African-American neighbourhood, but a relatively wealthy one. Auburn Avenue was lined with black-owned businesses, and Martin Luther King Jr’s father was head of community hub, the Ebenezer Baptist Church.
That historic church – at which the young Civil Rights leader eventually became co-pastor – has been superseded. It got too old and too small for the thriving congregation.
Ebenezer Baptist Church: Restored to 1960s glory
Work on the new, modern church building across the street kicked off in 1999. The historic church was saved, however, and restored to look as it did in the 1960s.
It now serves as a heavy slice of atmospherics for visitors rather than a place of worship. Cute stained glass windows have been carefully refurbished, and King sermons are played softly over the speaker system.
But its purpose is to bring people into the scene, rather than tell the story.
The King Center: Chronicling a life of change
The tale of the man with a dream is told at the nearby King Center, which was built by his widow Coretta Scott King. It’s a slightly haphazard place, with small side rooms concentrating on Rosa Parks and Gandhi.
But it does a good job of putting King Jr’s life into a timeline. A couple of things are particularly striking.
The speed of Civil Rights history
The first is the speed at which events unfolded. Just over a year after he moved to Montgomery to become the pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, he was chosen as the leader of the Montgomery Improvement Association.
The assassination attempts – whether bombs thrown on the porch of his home or stabbings – came thick and fast too. But perhaps most striking are the arrests, which seem to be as common an occurrence as putting out the bins or mowing the lawn.
Systematic targeting by authorities
The pettiness of some of them – traffic offences, obstructing a sidewalk, refusing to obey a police officer – hints that he was seen as a prize by the authorities. The Civil Rights struggle wasn’t just about changing attitudes – it was about changing a system where those attitudes were utterly entrenched.
National Historical Park: The wider movement
The King Center is focused on the man, and provokes emotions of sympathy and admiration. But the National Historical Park’s Visitor Centre spreads the focus to the wider Civil Rights movement.
And despite even-handed language used in the displays, it’s hard to come out without feeling a furious, burning rage. Glass panels list some of the ‘Jim Crow’ laws southern states had put in place to ensure racial segregation.
The Jim Crow system of oppression
These laws kept black Americans as far away from a level playing field as possible, meaning:
- Intermarriage prohibitions and social restrictions
- Separate telephone booths and public facilities
- Segregated lunch counters and restaurants
- Theatres, parks and recreational facilities
- Schools with vastly unequal resources
- Train travel and transportation segregation
When the stories of how this affected life get personal, it really hits home. For example, King and his new wife Coretta had to spend their wedding night at a funeral parlour because no hotel in the area would accept them.
Strategic planning and personal sacrifice
In between the soaring anger of learning about the outrageous student to teacher ratios in black schools, there’s chance to contemplate on the importance of strategy. The March on Washington, which culminated in the I Have A Dream speech, was deliberately framed as a march for jobs and freedom.
King Jr was chosen to lead the Montgomery bus boycott because pastors traditionally had a bit more leeway to say things than other black Americans. The policy of non-violence was both deliberate and enforced.
The toll of leadership
A quote from King Jr reads: “It was routine for us to collect hundreds of knives from our own ranks before the demonstrations, in case of momentary weakness.” The sacrifices that MLK Jr made also hit home.
By mid-60s he was travelling 325,000 miles annually and making 450 speeches a year. He was repeatedly in and out of jail.
And he was just 39 years old when assassinated in Memphis. His funeral wagon is on display.
