The jail in Birmingham, Alabama where Martin Luther King wrote his famed Letter from Birmingham Jail in 1963 and where he was held after his last civil rights arrest in 1967 will be preserved as a memorial. The old cells are located within the Jefferson County Courthouse, but have not been used for years.
County officials, led by President Pro-Tem Lashunda Scales, voted unanimously to memorialize and preserve the seventh-floor cells to “preserve Jefferson County’s history while embracing the spirit of change that exists today.”
The resolution is the first step to funding the project, assembling materials and making the cells available for visitors.