Atlanta - MLK Birthplace & Memorial

The "walking" exhibit

"Walkers" looking out on the Rose Garden

The drinking fountains at the Visitor's Center

Folks sitting next to the reflecting pool

Notice how the reflecting pool looks flat but is stair-stepped.

House where M.L. King and his father were both born. 

He lived here with immediate and extended family members until he was twelve years old.

Tours of the house are free but one has to get a ticket at the Visitor's Center down the street - it's the building behind the fountain and reflecting pool.

I signed up for a 2 o'clock ticket which I walk-in reserved at 1:00 - and was told to come back and pick up at 1:30. Uh-huh. So I did it.

There is another, newer Visitor's Center across and further down the street - where the drinking fountains work. It's more updated and has an interactive museum with modern exhibits and a film featuring children.

The older Visitor's Center section (where you get the tour tickets) has a few rooms with things like a pair of Gandhi's sandals in a case.

An eternal flame burns across from the tomb where Martin Luther King, Jr. and Coretta Scott King are buried. The tomb sits on an island in the water.

The old Ebenezer Baptist Church is open to walk right in. I'm not sure if the cross and the stained glass window at the front were there since it's beginning, but they're a rather touching combination. I would've thought - to be honest - that I wouldn't have liked either of these. An electric cross? And a modern stained glass window of Jesus? Usually I like more impressionistic things, I guess. But they're thought-provoking as worship emblems set before real congregants in this historic church.

The new Ebenezer Baptist Church building is opposite, and is an active church versus a museum.

I liked the exhibit inside the building across the street, with statues of people walking down an ordinary street with its dashed line painted down the middle. The figures are placed as if they are walking towards the light and freedom of a large plate-glass window which looks out onto the rose garden. I found the arrangement powerful. The simplicity of the walking. The earth-shaking meaning of that simple action at that time.