Dexter Parsonage Museum

The modest white-frame house where Martin Luther King Jr. lived with his family from 1954 to 1960 has been preserved as it was during his pastorate. Most of the furniture and books in the study, kitchen, and bedrooms belonged to the Kings.

Hour-long guided tours (mornings and early afternoons, Tuesday through Saturday) cover the parsonage and the small Interpretive Center next door, which sketches the bus boycott and the broader civil rights movement using artefacts and photographs from local families. Combine with the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church a few blocks away.

things to do museum history
A story
On 30 January 1956, two months into the bus boycott, a bomb was thrown onto the front porch while Coretta Scott King and their baby daughter Yolanda were inside. The damage is still visible in a brick on the porch — the museum guides will point it out. King emerged that evening to address the angry crowd that had gathered and famously asked them not to retaliate.