A modest clapboard cottage waits for you in Centennial Hill, once a middle- and upper-class African-American neighborhood: the Dexter Parsonage Museum. The house was built in 1912 and purchased in 1919 by the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church for use as their parsonage. From 1954 until 1960 it was the home of Martin Luther King Jr. and his family while he served as pastor.
In January 1956, during the Montgomery bus boycott, the home was bombed, an event that focused attention on the boycott and stood in stark contrast to King’s commitment to non-violent methods. Notice the exterior: a pyramidal roof with a gable on the south side of the façade, the full-width shed-roofed porch, and the entry door framed by diamond-paneled sidelights and a transom. Inside, although the interior was remodeled in 1966 — with the back porch enclosed as a second bathroom and the kitchen modernized — original mantels, mouldings, and doors remain, and much of the furniture is the same used by the King family.
The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Notice the clapboard siding, the porch, and the diamond-paneled entry that still frame this quiet street.