Martin Luther King Day might've come and gone, but we still have February, aka Black History Month, to remember all the places that shaped the civil rights leader's legacy. Click here to learn how to highlight the civil rights movement during this month.

Keep reading to explore the places most important to MLK.

1. Atlanta

Atlanta was the block of the intensely racist South where MLK was born and buried. The state capital is home to the Ebenezer Baptist Church, famous for being the place where MLK was baptized and pastored with his father in 1960.

The King Center is where MLK and Coretta Scott King, who inaugurated this center, were laid to rest. It's a great way to learn about Civil Rights Movement from the MLK lens and pay your respects at the King's tombs, as did a million people every year before the pandemic.

2. Birmingham

Birmingham was important to MLK and the overall Causes of Civil Rights Movement because it was the city that saw the most segregation and integration resistance. It was from a jail in Birmingham that MLK penned "Letter from a Birmingham Jail" in 1963 for all the white ministers speaking against nonviolent civil disobedience.

The physical door of his jail cell is still intact and on display at the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, along with several documents related to the movement.

3. Memphis

The Lorraine Motel in Memphis was one of the few places where black travelers felt safe and welcome. Unfortunately, it attracted negative attention after becoming the site of the martin luther king assassination during the civil rights leader's visit to support sanitation workers in March 1968. Today, this motel is home to the National Civil Rights Museum, MLK's final motel room forever visible to the public eye. 

Apart from the motel-turned-museum, Memphis is also home to The Four Way, a restaurant frequented by King and serving many southern delicacies, including the activist's favorite, the lemon meringue pie.

4. Montgomery

Montgomery is important to MLK for many reasons, chief among them being the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This 13-month mass action that began when Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger ended with a Supreme Court ruling banning all segregation on public buses.

King played an important role in organizing the long movement in Montgomery, as it occurred in 1956, and King was pastoring at a church between 1954 and 1960. He resided at the Dexter Parsonage Museum, frequently bombed by opponents of the movement.

Learn more about the civil rights movement facts to explore possible motives behind the MLK assassination on Kennedys and King. Go through our resources, blogs, and multimedia, and contribute some of your own if it has anything to do with the political assassinations of the 1960s. 

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