Church of MLK’s 1st leadership position gets museum funding

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Work has begun to make a museum out of the crumbling Alabama church where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was elected to his first leadership position in the civil rights movement. King was 26 when he was chosen to lead the Montgomery Improvement Association in 1955, on the first day of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The National Parks Service approved a $500,000 renovation grant in 2018 for what is now an annex to the Mt. Zion AME Church. But Central Alabama Community Foundation President Charles “C.P.” Everett tells the Montgomery Advertiser that grant money was slowed by a series of problems, including the coronavirus pandemic.