Martin Luther King Jr was born in this two-storey Atlanta house in 1929 and spent his first 12 years there; visitors can now explore the family home on free ranger-led tours

Martin Luther King Jr birth home, Atlanta, the two-storey house at 501 Auburn Avenue is where the civil rights leader was born on 15 January 1929 and lived for the first twelve years of his life. It stands in the residential section of Sweet Auburn, the centre of Black Atlanta. Today the property operates as a historic site, and visitors can enter the home only on a guided tour led by a park ranger. Its frame construction, Queen Anne style and its place on Auburn Avenue, the street of his family’s church and the King Centre, shape the entire visit.A 1926 marriage brought Michael Luther King into the household, and three children were born thereAccording to the National Park Service, the house was built in 1895 for a white family. Reverend Adam Daniel Williams, pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, bought it in 1909 for $3,500. He moved in with his wife, Jennie Celeste, and their six-year-old daughter, Alberta Christine, the only one of their three children to survive infancy.On 25 November 1926, Christine married a minister named Michael Luther King at her father’s church. Instead of Christine leaving, her new husband moved into the family home with her parents. Three children were born there: Willie Christine, Michael Jr, who later became known as Martin Luther King Jr, and Alfred Daniel.The King Centre said the household was larger than one family. Martin Luther King Jr lived there with his grandparents, parents and siblings, as well as other relatives and boarders.From a rental property to a museum; how the home was kept after the family moved to BoulevardReverend Williams died of a heart attack in the house on 21 March 1931. His wife later died of a heart attack too, and the King family then moved to a new home at 193 Boulevard. The old house stayed in the family and became a rental property.National Park Service said plans to restore it as a historic museum began after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr on 4 April 1968.How Ebenezer Baptist Church on Auburn Avenue tied three generations of the family to one pulpitHis maternal grandfather, Reverend Williams, became the second pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in 1893. Martin Luther King Sr. served as the third pastor from 1933 until he retired in 1975.Martin Luther King Jr served as co-pastor from 1947 until he left for Crozer Theological Seminary in September 1948. He returned as co-pastor from 1960 until his assassination in 1968. The church, at 407 Auburn Avenue, was restored in 2011 to its appearance during those final years.How to tour the birth home, free ranger-led visits, same-day registration and limited group sizesVisitors register in person on the day of the tour at the information desk of the visitor centre, as The King Centre explained, and no reservations are possible. Tours fill first come, first served, and they go quickly at weekends and on holidays. Groups can reserve up to three spaces on the day.The King Centre’s visitor guide lists tours every day, starting at 10 in the morning with the last at 5 in the afternoon. Each lasts 30 minutes and runs hourly. From Memorial Day weekend to Labour Day, tours run every half hour between 9.30 in the morning and 5.30 in the afternoon.You use AI every day. Now get your AI Quotient. Take the AIQ test.