DEARBORN, Mich. (AP) 鈥� A home where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders planned strategies during the Civil Rights movement in the Deep South has been rebuilt at a Michigan museum after being dismantled and hauled from Alabama.
The daughter of the original owners on Friday helped open the Jackson House on the grounds of The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, just outside Detroit. The house is among more than 80 other historic structures in the museum’s Greenfield Village.
Several hundred people attended a ceremonial ribbon cutting and cheered as Jawana Jackson and Henry Ford Museum President and Chief Executive Patricia Mooradian walked through the front door of the 3,000-square-foot (280-square-meter) bungalow.
Jackson said that Ford Motor Co. founder and industrialist Henry Ford built Greenfield Village to tell the story of America. 鈥淭his, the Jackson family home, is part of that story,鈥� she continued.
Owned by dentist Sullivan Jackson and his wife, Richie Jean, the home in Selma, Alabama, was where King and others in 1965 discussed three against Jim Crow laws that prevented Black people from voting.
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. in 2023 for an undisclosed price.
Mooradian called the home a symbol for the support of all and the 鈥減ursuit of justice and dignity and equality during one of the most defining chapters in our nation’s history.鈥�
鈥淲e’re opening a doorway to history,鈥� Mooradian said. 鈥淎 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.鈥�
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 鈥渇ireside chats鈥� 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 鈥淯ncle Martin,鈥� 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 that had protected against racial discrimination in voting and representation. Three years ago, to strip the government of its most potent tool to stop voting bias 鈥� 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鈥檚 approval before changing the way they hold elections.
鈥淲e are still trying to protect democracy,鈥� Jackson said Friday. 鈥淲hat Uncle Martin did in this house all those many years ago continues today.鈥�
___
Williams is a member of AP鈥檚 Race & Ethnicity team.
Copyright © 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, written or redistributed.
