Security fence installed around MLK Jr. Birth Home

ATLANTA, Ga. (Atlanta News First) – A chilly afternoon couldn’t keep people from traveling to one of Atlanta’s premiere historic destinations.

“At the Martin Luther King Jr. Birth House,” announced visitor Rayna Guy. “That we can’t see!”

Guy came with family and friends to Atlanta for MLK weekend, all the way from Sophia, West Virginia.

“It’s literally one stoplight at ‘T’ in the road, and I don’t think it even needs that,” she said.

But that journey ended just steps from the home when a new security fence prevented her and others from reaching the house.

“I didn’t know there would be a fence,” she said. “I thought I would at least get to go on the porch.”

The National Parks Service recently put up the fence around the home after a woman was caught trying to burn it down in early December.

“It’s disappointing,” Sauncha Guy said. “But it’s also a reason to make another trip.”

Locals like Marissa Simms were no less surprised.

“To see it fenced off this year, it kind of puzzled me,” Simms said.

But the fence could only keep people out. It couldn’t keep them from paying homage to the man at the forefront of the American Civil Rights Movement.

“Atlanta, Georgia, stands on Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy and what he’s done for the African American community,” Simms said.

So, while people couldn’t go into the home, they could still tip their caps and point their phones to history that’s more than a home.

“It means having a voice, finding your voice, sticking true to that voice,” Rayna Guy said.

The MLK Birth Home is set to undergo a multi-million dollar renovation that is expected to take two years to complete.

Copyright 2024 WANF. All rights reserved.