Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church
407 Auburn Avenue NE
The church was a spiritual home of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and remains part of the National Park Service's interpretive landscape.
Read NPS history ↗ArcLume initiative · In development
Auburn Avenue: a corridor of living history.
One corridor, many stories of faith, enterprise, civic leadership, architecture, and community life.
CONCEPT STAGE Atlanta, Georgia
The emerging vision
Connecting the landmarks. Honoring everything in between.
Sweet Auburn is more than a collection of famous addresses. Churches, fraternal organizations, businesses, homes, public spaces, and cultural institutions together shaped the social landscape of Atlanta's Black community.
ArcLume is developing a place-based approach to studying and interpreting the Auburn Avenue corridor, with an initial concept footprint between Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church and the Prince Hall Masonic Building. The aim is to connect scholarship, the physical streetscape, and community memories in a coherent narrative and stewardship strategy.
This is an emerging initiative. The final boundaries, participating organizations, project scope, and funding approach have not been established.
Two historical anchors
01 / EASTERN ANCHOR
02 / WESTERN ANCHOR
A shared street. Interconnected histories.
Prince Hall Masonic Building
330 Auburn Avenue NE
A landmark associated with Black fraternal life, civic leadership, historic enterprise, WERD Radio, and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Read NPS history ↗These sites serve as preliminary study anchors, not a surveyed or legally defined project boundary. This page does not imply a formal affiliation with the National Park Service.
Questions guiding our work
What would it take to interpret the corridor as a whole?
An interdisciplinary approach begins with the people, places, and sources already there.
Document the cultural landscape
Bring together historic maps, buildings, streets, institutions, archival collections, and existing scholarship.
Center community memory
Identify opportunities for oral histories and collaboration with residents, stewards, cultural organizations, and business owners.
Design meaningful interpretation
Explore coordinated signage, walking narratives, exhibits, digital stories, and accessible wayfinding—without presuming any approvals.
Build a lasting stewardship strategy
Evaluate preservation, partnership, funding, and implementation options that respect the corridor's living community.
Why it matters
The story is bigger than any single building.
The ambition is not simply to draw attention to a destination. It is to help visitors and Atlantans understand how people, institutions, and places together built a nationally significant center of Black civic and cultural life.
“Preservation begins with the relationships that give a place meaning.”
ArcLume's working perspectivePreserving place, together
Start a conversation ↗Have a story connected to Auburn Avenue?
We welcome conversations about the corridor's history and possible future documentation.