In Dearborn, Michigan, an iconic site of the Civil Rights movement has found a new home. The historic residence where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other prominent leaders once strategized has been meticulously reconstructed at The Henry Ford Museum. Originally located in Alabama, the house was carefully dismantled and transported to Michigan, where it now stands proudly among more than 80 historic structures in the museum’s Greenfield Village.
On a momentous Friday, the daughter of the home’s original owners, Jawana Jackson, joined Patricia Mooradian, President and CEO of The Henry Ford Museum, to officially open the Jackson House. The event, attended by several hundred supporters, included a ribbon-cutting ceremony that was met with enthusiastic applause as Jackson and Mooradian entered the 3,000-square-foot bungalow.
Jawana Jackson eloquently highlighted the significance of the relocation, noting that the founder of the museum, industrialist Henry Ford, envisioned Greenfield Village as a collection that narrates the story of America. “This, the Jackson family home, is part of that story,” she emphasized.
Originally owned by dentist Sullivan Jackson and his wife, Richie Jean, the Selma, Alabama residence played a pivotal role in history. It was here that King and other civil rights leaders convened in 1965 to plan the pivotal Selma-to-Montgomery marches, which were crucial in challenging Jim Crow laws that disenfranchised Black voters.
Owned by dentist Sullivan Jackson and his wife, Richie Jean, the home in Selma, Alabama, was where King and others in 1965 discussed three Selma-to-Montgomery marches against Jim Crow laws that prevented Black people from voting.
King was inside the home when President Lyndon Johnson announced a bill that would become the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
The role the Jackson House played was integral to the Civil Rights Movement. Jawana Jackson contacted the museum in 2022 to have it take over the home’s preservation and legacy. The museum bought the home in 2023 for an undisclosed price.
Mooradian called the home a symbol for the support of all and the “pursuit of justice and dignity and equality during one of the most defining chapters in our nation’s history.”
“We’re opening a doorway to history,” Mooradian said. “A place where an ordinary family chose to risk their lives to do something extraordinary. A place where conviction was tested. A movement was sheltered and nourished in this home, and where parents led with courage for the sake of their little girl.”
In 2023, crews began taking apart the house piece by piece. It was trucked more than 800 miles (1,280 kilometers) north to Dearborn, where the house was carefully reconstructed. Original artifacts, including the chair King sat in while he watched Johnson’s televised announcement, also were brought north.
Other items found in homes during the 1960s have been added to complete the exhibit.
The house was built in 1912 and served as a guesthouse for Black authors W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, who held “fireside chats” regarding education, religion, the arts, community building and economic sustainability, according to the Alabama African American Civil Rights Heritage Sites Consortium.
Jawana Jackson, who was 4 years old in 1965 and refers to King as “Uncle Martin,” connected the home’s history in the fight for voting rights during the 1960s with current attacks on those rights.
In April, the U.S. Supreme Court knocked out a major pillar of the law that had protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation. Three years ago, justices voted 5-4 to strip the government of its most potent tool to stop voting bias — the requirement in the Voting Rights Act that all or parts of 15 states with a history of discrimination in voting, mainly in the South, get Washington’s approval before changing the way they hold elections.
“We are still trying to protect democracy,” Jackson said Friday. “What Uncle Martin did in this house all those many years ago continues today.”
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Williams is a member of AP’s Race & Ethnicity team.