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During your Atlanta vacation, don't miss these great establishments and attractions:
Birth Home of Martin Luther King, Jr
Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in this two-story Queen Anne-style house on January 15, 1929, the oldest son of a Baptist minister and an elementary school music teacher. His childhood was a normal one. He preferred playing baseball to piano lessons, liked to play board games, and got a kick out of tearing the heads off his older sister's dolls (nonviolence came later). To quote his sister, Christine King Farris, "My brother was no saint ordained at birth, instead he was an average and ordinary man, called by . . . God . . . to perform extraordinary deeds."King lived here through the age of 12, then moved with his family to a house a few blocks away. A visit provides many insights into the formative influences on one of the greatest leaders of our time. The Rev. A. D. Williams, King's maternal grandfather and pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church, bought the house in 1909. Reverend Williams was active not only in the church, but also in the community and in early manifestations of the civil rights movement. He was a charter member of Atlanta's NAACP and led a series of black registration and voting drives as far back as 1917. He was instrumental in getting black officers onto the Atlanta police force. Martin Luther King, Sr., moved in on Thanksgiving Day, 1926, when he married Williams's daughter Alberta. When Reverend Williams died in 1931, King became head of the household and took over Williams's pulpit at Ebenezer Church.The King family retained ownership of the house at 501 Auburn even after they moved away. King's younger brother, Alfred Daniel, lived here with his family from 1954 to 1963. In 1971, King's mother deeded the home to The King Center. It has since been restored to its appearance during the years of King's boyhood. The furnishings are all originals or period reproductions, and some personal items belonging to the family are on display. Christine was actively involved in the restoration, providing a wealth of detail about the former appearance of the house, as well as anecdotal material about life in the King family.Tours of the house, conducted by National Park rangers, begin in the downstairs parlor, where you'll see family photographs showing Martin Luther as a child. The parlor was used for choir practice, for the dreaded piano lessons, and as a rec room where the family gathered around the radio to listen to shows like "The Shadow." In the dining room, world events were regularly discussed over meals, and every Sunday, before dinner, each child was required to recite a newly learned Bible verse from memory. You'll also see the coal cellar (stoking coal was one of King's childhood chores); the children's play area; the upstairs bedroom of King's parents in which Christine, King, and Alfred Daniel were born; Reverend Williams's den, where the family gathered for nightly Bible study; the bedroom King shared with his brother ("always in disarray," says Christine); and Christine's bedroom.Note: In summer, especially, tickets often run out early; for your best chance at touring the home, arrive at 9am.
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site
Under the auspices of the National Park Service, this area of about 2 blocks around Auburn Avenue was established to preserve the birthplace and boyhood surroundings of the nation's foremost civil rights leader. Designated a National Historic Site, these blocks include King's boyhood home and the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where King's father and grandfather were ministers and King served as a co-pastor. Free tours of King's birth home start at Fire Station No. 6, which was recently restored by the NPS; tickets are available on a first-come, first-served basis at the National Parks Service Visitor Center, 450 Auburn Ave.Other Auburn Avenue attractions, not under NPS auspices, include The King Center, where King is buried (see the previous listing), and the APEX Museum. Several more surrounding blocks have been designated as a preservation district. This area is known as Sweet Auburn. John Wesley Dobbs, maternal grandfather of former Atlanta mayor Maynard Jackson, is the person who first called it such, after Oliver Goldsmith's The Deserted Village, the first line of which reads, "Sweet Auburn! loveliest village of the plains." Mayor Jackson says his grandfather called the area "sweet" because the keys to black liberation existed here in the form of "the three b's -- bucks, ballots, and books."There is a visitor center at 450 Auburn Ave., across from the King Center. It provides a complete orientation to area attractions and includes a theater for audiovisual and interpretive programs, interactive exhibits, and a bookstore. The visitor center is fronted by a beautifully landscaped plaza with a reflecting pool, King's crypt (which his wife had returned to the site several years ago), and an outdoor amphitheater for National Park Service programs.
The Herndon Home
Alonzo Herndon was born in 1858, during the last decade of slavery. After emancipation, he worked as a field hand and sharecropper, supplementing his meager income by selling peanuts, homemade molasses, and axle grease. He arrived in Atlanta in the early 1880s, taking on work as a barber and eventually owning several barbershops of his own. Herndon used the earnings from these shops to acquire Atlanta real estate, and by 1900, less than 40 years out of slavery and with only a year of formal education, he was the richest black man in Atlanta. In 1905, Herndon purchased a church burial association, which, with other small companies, became the nucleus of the Atlanta Life Insurance Company, today the nation's second-largest black-owned insurance company.In 1910, Herndon built this elegant 15-room house in the Beaux Arts-neoclassical style, complete with a stately colonnaded entrance. Herndon and his wife, Adrienne McNeil, a drama teacher at Atlanta University, were the primary architects of the house, and construction was accomplished almost completely by African-American artisans. Because their son Norris occupied the home until 1977, much of the original furniture remains, and there are family photographs throughout. Adrienne died about a week after the house was completed.The house tour begins in a receiving room with a 10-minute introductory video called The Herndon Legacy. The tour then takes you through the reception hall; the music room, with rococo gilt-trimmed walls and Louis XV-style furnishings; the living room, with a frieze on its walls depicting the accomplishments of Herndon's life; the dining room, furnished in late Renaissance style with family china and Venetian glass displayed in a mahogany cabinet; the butler's pantry; and the sunny breakfast room. Upstairs, you'll see the bedroom used by Herndon's second wife Jessie, with its Jacobean suite and Louis XV-style furnishings; Herndon's Empire-furnished bedroom, where a book from a Republican National Convention is displayed on a table, letting you know his political bent; the collection room (Norris collected ancient Greek and Roman vases and funerary objects); Norris's bedroom; a sitting room; and a guest bedroom.
Castleberry Inn-Georgia Dome
Welcome to the Castleberry Family. We are Atlantas newest convention and vacation locale. Conveniently located in the heart of Atlanta, the Castleberry Inn makes for an ideal spot with many of Atlantas landmarks such as the World Congress Center, the Georgia Dome,the Georgia Aquarium and the A U C just minutes away. The Castleberry Inn has 170 rooms and suites equipped with refrigerator, microwave, and satellite television priced at competitively low rates. We offer a variety of services from ...
Hampton Inn Atlanta NE I-85 Gwinnett-Sugarloaf, GA
The Hampton Inn Sugarloaf is located northeast of downtown Atlanta, Georgia in Gwinnett County at I-85 and Sugarloaf Parkway. Conveniently located within walking distance of Discover Mills Mall/Entertainment Complex and just minutes from the Gwinnett Arena and Civic Center. The hotel is also convenient to many businesses and office parks, including Huntcrest Office Park, Scientific Atlanta, IKON Office Solutions, Panasonic and Safeco ...
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