MAIN PAGE / STORIES / HAPPENINGS / QUIZ / SITE SAMPLER
The historic site visitors' center stands across Auburn Avenue. Next door to the King Center is the brick Ebenezer Baptist Church (built 1914-22), where King joined his father as co-pastor in 1960. The still-active church is open for tours daily.
Outside the historic site but within the preservation district are more icons of black Atlanta and the civil rights movement -- Wheat Street Baptist Church, the Butler Street YMCA and the Atlanta Life Insurance Company building, headquarters of what was until 1980 the country's largest black-owned stockholder life insurance company. The nearby Herndon Building was named for the insurance company's founder, Alonzo F. Herndon, a former slave.
Entertainers like Cab Calloway and Louis Armstrong have performed in the Royal Peacock Club (known as the Top Hat from 1922-1948), at 184-186 Auburn Ave. Closer to downtown, the APEX (African-American Panoramic Experience) Museum chronicles the history and heritage of African Americans, with a focus on Sweet Auburn. And the Atlanta-Fulton Library System's Auburn Avenue Research Library is devoted to African American history and Atlanta's history as cradle of the civil rights movement.
© 1998 Cable News Network, Inc.
A Time Warner Company
All Rights Reserved.