Oct. 31, 1954

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. became the 20th minister of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery. Founded in 1877 and constructed between 1883 and 1889, the red-brick church has a long history of serving the African-American community under the leadership of well-trained, ambitious preachers such as King, Charles Octavius Boothe and Vernon Johns. The church was designated a national historic landmark in 1974 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Today, visitors can tour the church and parsonage, which served as home to 12 pastors of the church, as well as a museum, garden and interpretive center.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Martin Luther King at a press conference, Mar. 26, 1964. (Photograph by Marion Trikosko, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Dr. & Mrs. Martin Luther King Jr., 1964. (Photograph by Herman Hill, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division)

Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church in Montgomery, 2005. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist from 1954 until 1060. (The George F. Landegger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.