Source: Michael Ochs Archives / Getty
The house that Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights leaders used while planning the voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama will be getting a new home.
According to AP, the Jackson House will be moving to The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The house, which played a pivotal role in the Civil Rights Movement, will be preserved and restored by the museum. The purchase price of the house is undisclosed
“It became increasingly clearer to me that the house belonged to the world, and quite frankly, The Henry Ford was the place that I always felt in my heart that it needed to be,” Jawana Jackson, the niece of MLK told AP.
Beginning this year, the house will be taken apart piece-by-piece, then moved more than 800 miles north to Dearborn, Michigan. The Jackson House eventually will be opened to the public as a museum exhibit, but the project is expected to take about three years to complete. Included in the exhibit will be the house, artifacts such as King’s neckties, his pajamas and the chair where frequently sat to watch television or discusses new ideas.
“There was a synergy going on in that house during those critical times,” said Jackson. “Whether that was when Uncle Martin was praying the morning of the Selma to Montgomery march or whether he was talking to President Johnson (by phone) in the little bedroom of that home, I always got a sense of energy and a sense of hope for the future.”
Named after Ford Motor Co. founder and American industrialist Henry Ford, the museum sits on 250 acres (100 hectares) and also features Greenfield Village where more than 80 historic structures are displayed and maintained. The Jackson House will be rebuilt there, joining the courthouse where Abraham Lincoln first practiced law, the laboratory where Thomas Edison perfected the light bulb, and the home and workshop where Orville and Wilbur Wright invented their first airplane.
Also among the collection’s artifacts are the Montgomery city bus whose seat Rosa Parks refused to give up to a white man in 1955 and the chair that Lincoln was sitting on in 1865 when he was assassinated at Ford’s Theatre in Washington.
Visitors to Greenfield Village will be able to walk through the Jackson House, according to Patricia Mooradian, The Henry Ford’s president and chief executive.
SEE ALSO:
5 Facts About The Assassination Of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
