Did Martin Luther King Jr. Ever Make an Official Visit to Brooklyn New York?

Question: Did Martin Luther King Jr. Ever Make an Official Visit to Brooklyn New York?

Martin Luther King Day is a holiday celebrated by thousands of school children and others in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. While many historic figures have set foot in Brooklyn, from George Washington on, did Dr. King ever visit Brooklyn on official business?

Answer: In searching through local newspaper accounts, there's no evident record that Dr. King visited Brooklyn, at least on official business. However, some 14 years after the civil right's leader's death in 1968, Dr. King's father came to Brooklyn with a political agenda.

A news story reported by Sheila Rule in The New York Times on July 11, 1982 bore the headline, "DR. KING VISITS BROOKLYN TO ASSIST AN EFFORT TO REGISTER BLACK VOTERS." It reports that the elder Dr. King went on a voter registration mission, spending time in the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn. He was there to launch a voter registration drive aimed at registering "300,000 black voters in the borough by the fall," according to the story.

It notes that Dr. King attended a breakfast meeting organized by then-New York State Senator Vander L. Beatty, attended by "ministers, elected officials, political hopefuls and community leaders in calling for increased political participation by blacks. See the full story at The New York Times website.

See the Complete Guide to Celebrating Martin Luther King Day in January: Events in Brooklyn