John Lewis revives bid to bolster fed protection of MLK site
WASHINGTON – U.S. Rep. John Lewis is renewing an effort to upgrade federal protections for the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site in downtown Atlanta, a bipartisan endeavor that could face resistance from the White House given the Democrat’s recent scuffles with President Donald Trump.
The civil rights hero and 16-term lawmaker has pushed for years to designate the site as a national historic park, a reclassification his office says would draw more federal resources such as park rangers, educational programming and community grants.
Lewis’ bill would also add the Prince Hall Masonic Building, which served as the headquarters of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, to the sprawling campus that currently houses King’s birth home, the Ebenezer Baptist Church and a visitor center. King was the first president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which trained many of the civil rights movement’s leaders and spearheaded voter registration drives and education initiatives.
“It’s important for people to know about what happened during the latter part of the 20th century and the impact that Atlanta and Martin Luther King Jr. had on not just Atlanta, but America and the world,” Lewis said about the bill in an interview last spring.
Read more: http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/03/07/john-lewis-revives-bid-to-bolster-fed-protection-of-mlk-site/