The National Park Service on Wednesday announced the expansion of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historical Park in Atlanta to include a storied lodge where civil rights leaders planned some of their most successful campaigns against the segregation laws in the South.
The Prince Hall Masonic Temple and Lodge in Atlanta was the longtime headquarters of King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Black activists planned historic events in the building, such as the 1965 march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery to protest the violent suppression of Black voters.
Reginald Chapple, superintendent of the national park, said the agency was “honored” to incorporate the lodge into the park and surrounding preservation district, a historic Black neighborhood along Auburn Avenue that shaped King as a leader.
“This addition to the park preserves an important component of Dr. King’s story, as well as the Civil Rights Movement in the United States,” Chapple said.
