Martin Luther King, Jr. Historic District (Boundary Increase)

This amended historic district covers roughly 280 acres of the Auburn Avenue neighborhood in Atlanta, east of the Interstate 75/85 corridor. It enlarges the district first listed in 1974 and extends its period of significance to 1968. Most of its 482 contributing resources are single-family houses, along with duplexes, apartment buildings, churches, schools, commercial blocks on Edgewood and Auburn avenues, and industrial sites beside the Southern Railroad. Development occurred in three phases: an integrated late 19th-century neighborhood, a substantial early 20th-century phase after the area became a large black residential enclave, and mid-century low-income apartment construction. The 1917 Atlanta fire destroyed much of the area north of Auburn Avenue, prompting rebuilding in the following decade. Martin Luther King, Jr., grew up here and later worked and worshiped at Ebenezer Baptist Church. The district is valued for that connection, for its role in the Civil Rights Movement, and for the community's history.