This was the first painting that was created in the Spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. collection.

Marlena states, "It seemed most appropriate to begin this series of paintings by depicting Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. leading prayer at the pulpit of his pastoral home, Ebenezer Baptist Church. He was profoundly tied to the church from his childhood baptism to his funeral in April 1968."

His spiritual legacy with the church ran three generations deep as his maternal grandfather, Reverend Adam Daniel Williams, and his father, Reverend Martin Luther King Sr., built the church into one of the city’s most influential African American churches in Atlanta, Georgia. The church’s early work began with promoting black businesses, home ownership, and fighting for fair treatment despite the Jim Crow laws.

Martin Luther King Jr. gave his first sermon at the church in the fall of 1947, and was ordained as a minister there at the age of 19, just a few months later. Now a reverend, he became co-pastor with his father. After his death, his younger brother, Reverend Alfred Daniel Williams King, replaced him, furthering the legacy.

Ebenezer Baptist Church was elemental to the start and growth of the civil rights movement. Many early civil rights meetings where held in this church. It was where Martin Luther King Jr. along with his best friend and mentor, Ralph David Abernathy, founded the Montgomery Improvement Movement. This movement became the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), which organized and carried out the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This boycott was one of the largest, most successful non-violent protests in America. It inspired a nation to begin seeking equality.

The church remained tied to the tragedy that often befell the King Family, when Martin Luther King Jr.’s mother, Alberta Williams King, was assassinated in the church along with a deacon during service while she sat at the organ ... only 6 years after her son’s death.