MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. PARK

PARK HISTORY

This park was acquired as the result of a large urban renewal project in the unincorporated area of Elmwood Park. This project spanned the early sixties with $15,575 spent for land and $28,000 in development. Several names for the park were proposed through a local school “Name the Park” contest. On July 17, 1968 the area was dedicated as Martin Luther King, Jr. County Park. The park was renovated in 1985 with improvements to the restrooms, playground, and ballfield. This was funded by Community Development money.

A new master plan for the park was developed with public input from the community and the Park was completely redeveloped accordingly in 2001. The Community Development Office provided the funding. A grant from the St. Louis Health Department paid for the rubber surfacing from recycled materials under the playground structures.

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR. Martin Luther King, Jr. was born January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia, son of Reverend Martin Luther King, Sr. and Alberta Williams King. He graduated high school at the age of 15, and promptly entered Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was ordained as a minister just before he graduated Moorehouse in 1948. He then entered Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania to earn a divinity degree, and earned his Ph. D. from Boston University in 1954. The previous year King married Coretta Scott in Alabama, and the couple would have four children by 1963. King’s civil rights involvement began in 1955 with a protest of Montgomery’s segregated bus system. King received national fame in 1956 when the United States Supreme Court ordered Montgomery to provide equal and integrated seating on public buses. In 1957 King helped to found the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to expand the nonviolent struggle against racism. In 1960 King moved from Montgomery to Atlanta, where he became co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church with his father. In 1963 King and other civil rights leaders the March on Washington, where he delivered his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Dr. King received many honorary doctorates, and several hundred awards, including the Nobel Peace Price in 1964. While organizing the Poor People’s Campaign in 1968, King went to Memphis, Tennessee to support a strike of black garbagemen. Here he was shot and killed by James Earl Ray. Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, in Elmwood Park, was dedicated in 1968.