Trace MLK’s steps in New Orleans.
A photo taken by the Times-Picayune during a meeting that Martin Luther King attended at the New Orleans Coliseum Arena on Feb. 2, 1957.
Coliseum Arena
The once-Coliseum Arena
Days before the birth of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, King spoke at the Coliseum Arena, a New Orleans auditorium at 401 N. Roman St., near what's now the Lafitte Greenway. The stadium, which also hosted sporting and music events, closed in 1960.
King — in front of a crowd estimated by New Orleans police at about 2,200 people — predicted that racial integration would be won by 1963 and asked that Black people unite to "protest en masse and refuse to co-operate with segregation," The Times-Picayune wrote on Feb. 2, 1957.
A photo taken by the Times-Picayune during a meeting that Martin Luther King attended at the New Orleans Coliseum Arena on Feb. 2, 1957.
He said democracy and segregation couldn't exist in unison, stating that "if democracy is to live, segregation has to die," The Times-Picayune reported.
The Times-Picayune reported that four speakers dubbed King with biblical names like the "modern Moses," "our Caleb and Joshua" and "the King of our day."
Martin Luther King Jr. delivers the baccalaureate address at Dillard University on May 31, 1959.
Just before the peak of the Civil Rights Movement, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. visited New Orleans to spread the message of racial equality and energize the city to end segregation in the South.
In the late 1950s, the civil rights icon spoke at a now-closed auditorium in New Orleans' Seventh Ward. He then worked with a group of ministers to establish a well-known civil rights organization at a local Baptist church.
King also often met with fellow civil rights leaders at a world-famous New Orleans restaurant.
Dooky Chase's Restaurant
In the height of segregation and racism in the South, Dooky Chase's Restaurant was a safe place for everyone.
King would meet with other civil rights leaders to have pivotal discussions on the Civil Rghts Movement, while enjoying a bowl of gumbo, according to The Times-Picayune.
New Zion Baptist Church
In February 1957, King and other ministers launched the Southern Christian Leadership Conference at New Zion Baptist Church in Central City.
On a Thursday night, the civil rights organization discussed its efforts toward desegregation, with King calling segregation "a great cancer in the body politic," according to a story published by The Times-Picayune on Feb. 15, 1957.
King said that segregationists would be shocked by the idea of desegregation at first, until seeing that "the only way is to sit down and talk things out with those who have freedom in their heart," The Times-Picayune reported.
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