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A2 u.s. news
Monday 13 January 2020

Alabama county to preserve jail

remnant where MLK was held

By JAY REEVES day to memorialize and was there. The community
Associated Press preserve an area on the needs to "recognize it past
BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) seventh floor of the county mistakes" to move forward,
— An Alabama county is courthouse that used to be she said. "We believe that
preserving what's left of a jail. Much of the floor is the public should have the
the lockup where officials now used for storage and right, for educational pur-
say Martin Luther King Jr. mechanical equipment. poses, to know about King's
served his final time behind Sheriff Mark Pettway said last movements before he
bars just months before his the civil rights leader was was assassinated. That's
assassination. held on the floor in 1967, very important to us," said
In this Friday, Jan. 10, 2020 photo, Jefferson County Sheriff Mark Jefferson County commis- when he served three days Roberts-Scales. The county
Pettway speaks in a cell at the old county jail in Birmingham,
Ala. sioners unanimously ap- for contempt after losing plans to convert the area
Associated Press proved a resolution Thurs- an appeal on his convic- into a tourist attraction that
tion for demonstrating with- could open soon, she said.
out a permit years earlier. An old jail log that includes
A timeline produced with King's name and that of his
the help of the King estate brother, A.D. King, hangs
cites the stint as King's last in a conference room at
time in jail. King was assas- the office of Pettway, the
sinated about five months first black sheriff in Jeffer-
later in Memphis, Tennes- son County. Pettway said
see. A small area including he first saw the old jail af-
two pale-green cells, an ter joining the department
isolation chamber, a show- as an officer in 1999 but
er and mechanical equip- didn't realize its connec-
ment are all that remain tion to King until a worker
from the old jail. The county showed him the booking
doesn't know whether King record recently. He called
was held in that exact sec- the jail remnants a "hidden
tion or another section that treasure" that was largely
has since been removed. forgotten. "The last time he
But commission member was arrested, the last time
Lashunda Roberts-Scales he was housed in a jail, it
said it was important to was in the county jail here
preserve what's left of the in Jefferson County," said
jail regardless since King Pettway.q