MLK’s childhood home sold to National Park Service

The childhood home of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. now belongs to the National Park Service.

The two-story home on Auburn Avenue in Atlanta was sold to the National Park Service on November 27, 2018.

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The organization “facilitated through private philanthropy the purchase of Martin Luther King Jr.’s birth home and its immediate transfer to the National Park Service,” according to a statement from the National Park Foundation.

Neither the organization or the King Center for Nonviolent Social Change confirmed the sale price amount, but CBS 46 reports that the 1895 home was sold for $1.9 million.

Built for a white family, the home was purchased for $3,500 in 1909 by King’s maternal grandfather, according to a report from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. King was born there on Jan. 15, 1929.

AJC reporter Ernie Suggs writes: “King’s younger brother, A.D. King and his family moved back into the house for a brief period before leaving in the early 1960s when he was called to take over a church in Birmingham. They were the last family members to live there, as the family then used it as a rental property.”

Dan Moore of the African-American Panoramic Experience believes that the transaction is ultimately a good move for the national landmark. The museum is located just blocks away from King’s childhood home.

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“When you look at preservation, it’s much better in the hands of the National Park Service, who has the funds to preserve it,” he told Cleveland 19. “The National Park Service has a long record of preservation, and of course this is their first national park for a Black individual, so we have to maintain all of the things we can as long as we can.”

More details are expected to be revealed in January after the MLK holiday, the foundation said in a statement.