156 M.L. King Avenue

The house at 156 Central Avenue was built in the 1950's for Mrs. Janie Price, a nurse at Flagler Hospital. She had taken her nurse's training at Grady Hospital in Atlanta in the 1940s and while there had attended dances with students from Morehouse College--one of them a teenager named Martin Luther King, Jr.

When Dr. King came to St. Augustine during the campaign that led to the passage of the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, this was one of the houses where he stayed. Mrs. Price remembered Dr. King and his colleague, Rev. Ralph Abernathy, eating breakfast here before going off to be arrested at the Monson Motor Lodge on the bay front--an event that made international news.

In 1985 the name of Central Avenue was changed to honor Martin Luther King. Many cities have streets named for Dr. King, but this one is special because he actually stayed on it in the course of changing history.

This Historical Marker Presented this 2nd Day of July, 2007 by: Northrop Grumman

Marker is on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Ave..

Courtesy hmdb.org

Credits and Sources:

HMDB