In April 1957, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stepped onto the campus of LeMoyne College. Those accompanying him included Nat D. Williams, whose rootedness into what is now ZIP code 38126 would give anyone traveling with him instant neighborhood credibility.
Dr. King really needed no such community-cred by this time. His leadership in the bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala. had both rocketed him to national acclaim and cemented his status as a man of the people.
Eleven years later he was dead, killed in Memphis. How does one measure the journey of a city 50 years later? I decided to look at it through the community he visited back in 1957, and, more specifically, ZIP code 38126 – now the poorest in Memphis and one of the poorest in the country.
This is not a one-time look. The TSD’s MLK50 coverage will continue through April 2019. Overall, the focus will be on raising the profile of poverty, putting faces to conditions and chronicling the transformative efforts of individuals and groups.
We will be posting stories from this special edition in the days leading up to April 4. In the meantime, we invite you to read and reflect on “MLK50: The View From 38126” — on newsstands now or view the PDF below!
