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Civil Rights Landmark Opens to the Public in Michigan

by Jennifer Vosters

A digital collage of three images. One photo with an adult with a child on their lap, both sitting on an armchair. The second photo of a pink house with white trim and details. And the third photo of two adults and a young child.

An ordinary home—and the extraordinary people who lived there—will give visitors firsthand access to one of America’s most important and transformative eras.

This June, a hub of American history opens to the public in Michigan after spending more than 100 years in Alabama.

Built in Selma in 1919, the Dr. Sullivan and Mrs. Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson Home now stands in Greenfield Village, a neighborhood of historic buildings at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn. 

The home entered the world stage in 1964, when a friend of the Jacksons asked if he could use it as a base during the voting rights movement in Selma. 

That friend was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

A black and white archival family photo of two adults and a young child in their living room
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
Dr. Sullivan and Mrs. Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson with their daughter Jawana at their Alabama home.

“The world comes through this home because the world comes through Selma at the height of this decades-long fight for the expansion of American voting rights, specifically for Black Americans,” says Amber N. Mitchell, Curator of Black History at The Henry Ford Museum.

The Jacksons hosted Dr. King and other activists, government officials, and civil rights leaders in the pivotal year of 1965. Aspects of what became the Voting Rights Act were drafted there. Within their walls, organizers reeled from the events of Bloody Sunday—when Alabama state troopers attacked peaceful marchers in Selma—and watched as President Lyndon B. Johnson declared the protests “a turning point.”

After opening the home as a museum in Selma for many years, the Jacksons’ daughter, Jawana Jackson, looked for an organization that could preserve it for future generations. The Henry Ford made a compelling case.

“If there’s any place that knows historic buildings, it’s us,” says Mitchell. “In addition to having the background in historic preservation, we have a unique position in telling the stories of American history through the lens of Black Americans.”

A living room with a sofa and a couple of armchairs and a television box by the fireplace
Photo Credit: Roy Ritchie / Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
The team at The Henry Ford Museum restored the original details of the Jackson home from photos and writings.
An archival photo of an adult wearing a suit holding a young child on their lap as they sit on an armchair
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
Dr. King and young Jawana Jackson in the living room of the Jackson home in Selma, Alabama.
A black and white archival photo of a couple cutting their tiered cake on their wedding day
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
Dr. Sullivan and Mrs. Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson on their wedding day.
A black and white archival photo of a child's birthday with cake and candles on the table in from of them and five adults standing around
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
Family and friends would often gather at the Jackson home. Years worth of photographs are also a part of the Selma landmark, now located in Greenfield Village in Michigan.
A black and white archival photo of an adult and young child sitting on the porch stairs of a house
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
Jawana and her mother on the front porch of their house.

Getting the house to Michigan was a feat. A team of workers on the cutting edge of preservation removed the roof, front porch, post-1960s additions, windows, and doors (and more than 8,000 artifacts); shored up the inside as much as possible; then cut the house in half. The halves were driven more than a thousand miles in water-proof trailers, where the house spent its first Michigan winter in an airplane hangar.

At Greenfield Village, the home was painstakingly restored based on photos and Mrs. Jackson’s own writings to a specific date: March 15, 1965, when Dr. King was photographed watching President Johnson introduce his voting rights bill to Congress.

A pink single story house with white detailing
Photo Credit: Roy Ritchie / Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
The Dr. Sullivan and Mrs. Richie Jean Sherrod Jackson Home now stands in Greenfield Village, a neighborhood of historic buildings at The Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan.
A house dug up, cut, and getting ready for relocation.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
A team of workers on the cutting edge of preservation removed the roof, front porch, post-1960s additions, windows, and doors (and more than 8,000 artifacts); shored up the inside as much as possible; then cut the house in half.
Cars with signs that read "oversized load" on a highway follow a semi trailer hauling a house structure
Photo Credit: Courtesy of The Henry Ford Museum
The halves were driven more than a thousand miles in water-proof trailers, where the house spent its first Michigan winter in an airplane hangar.

Visitors can walk through an interpretive gallery offering context on the Jacksons, the voting rights movement, and the legacy of the Civil Rights era. Then, they enter the home through the back door—the one Dr. King used, due to the risks of using the front entrance.

“You can feel the energy of these spaces [where] Dr. King and John Lewis and Reverend Ralph Abernathy and titans of the movement were meeting,” says Mitchell.

The Jackson Home highlights “a family—just like anybody else—who decided to put themselves and their young daughter at risk in bringing a movement into their home,” says Mitchell. “Their unique story sheds light on what it means to organize, to have a role as an American citizen, especially as it comes to voting rights.”

More information on the Jackson Home, including its restoration process, is available to view online.