Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in Atlanta

Several years ago, while driving through Atlanta, I noticed an advertisement for the Martin Luther King Jr., National Historic Park. I decided to look. The 35-acre site sits within a larger neighborhood just a few miles from downtown Atlanta surrounded by apartment buildings and single-family homes easily dating back to the 1930s or earlier. The Park includes the museum which houses images and relics from King’s years in the civil rights movement, the Ebenezer Baptist Church for which he served as the pastor, and the home in which King was born. The park also has King’s and his wife Coretta’s burial site. Their tomb is surrounded by a pool of water and fronted by an eternal flame. There is much that could be said about this historic park, but it was clear, at least to me, that though his reputation was earned in the battle for civil rights, his heart was founded in his belief in God.