Malcolm X's boyhood home, MLK's neighborhood named 'endangered'

theGRIO REPORT - The childhood home of civil rights leader Malcolm X and the neighborhood where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born have been labeled 'endangered'...

Melissa Noel

Jun 7, 2012

The childhood home of civil rights leader Malcolm X and the neighborhood where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born have been labled “endangered.”

These two sites are among America’s 11 Most Endangered Historic Places, according to the annual list put out by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

The Malcolm X-Ella Little-Collins House in Boston was built in 1874, has been vacant for over 30 years, and is deteriorating.

The trust, which depends on private contributions, hopes to help raise $750,000 to revive the building. The money will give the organization the funding necessary to transform the building into graduate housing for students studying African-American studies, civil rights or social justice.

For the second time in 20 years, the Sweet Auburn Historic District of Atlanta, where Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born, is on the list.

The district flourished as a segregated African-American neighborhood during the Jim Crow era in the South, but began to decline in the 1980s.

By 1992, the historic district was on the annual list of the most endangered historic places. This year, deterioration and inappropriate development threaten the neighborhood to the point that it is on the list once again. The National Trust for Historic Preservation is working to put into place a plan that would revitalize the commercial area around Auburn Avenue in Atlanta.

The nine other historic landmarks on the list include the gym where boxing legend Joe Frazier trained and the Ellis Island Hospital Complex that once comprised the largest U.S. Public Health institution in the country.

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