his place breathes, touches, whispers. The blood-red velvet pew cushions. The chipped, worn wood. The throne-like pastor's chair. The pulpit where Martin Luther King Jr. rose to rock America with his melodic eloquence and profound love. The space below where his coffin once silently testified that this was a nation of profound hate, too.
A table stands there this day, 28 years later, engraved with the verse, "This do in remembrance of me."
My children and I are sitting in the front row of Ebenezer Baptist Church, in the spot Coretta Scott King sat in April 1968, the weight of death dragging tears down her cheeks. The children are quiet, scribbling in the journals I asked them to keep; noting the creaky floors; the glowing red carpet. Jotting down facts as the recorded voice of Pastor Joseph L. Roberts tells of the church's storied past.
I am embroiled in a silent battle against sudden, heaving emotion that has quickened my heartbeat, saturated my confused mind, and is splashing at the corners of my eyes.
What nerve did I prick? What unsuspecting vein have I tapped? Sadness? Anger? Bitterness? What wellspring of memory did I unearth with this single swing of a curious shovel?

It's April 1, 1996, the first day of our Easter vacation tour of six southern cities to trace critical steps on the road to civil rights and simple justice. I wanted my son and daughter to see and touch this history that is relegated to one month of their country's calendar.
I wanted them to know my heroes; to see the parents and grandparents of prejudice so that they might recognize its children and grandchildren. I wanted them to learn the truths of history that explain their past, inform their present, and inspire their future.
We would begin this pilgrimage on "Sweet" Auburn Street in Atlanta, where King was born. We would finish in Memphis on April 4, 28 years to the day after he was murdered.
We would use King's life as the unifying thread through much of this journey. We would do this in remembrance of him.
Along the way we would shake hands with history; come to know unsung heroes; learn new lessons in courage, love, peace, and hatred; feel what happens when the past pulls you to its bosom and hugs you so tight that it pushes all your pride to your chest and squeezes all the shame from the recesses of your soul.
We began where these stories always begin:
in the church.
Ebenezer looked like a picture pulled from a history book: preserved and sound, its neon shingle still spry, though creaking some as it swayed in a cold April breeze. A humble gift shop and part-time tour guide were its only visible concessions to fame.
As we walked around, I watched what the children watched. Keith, a few days away from his 11th birthday, paused as we climbed the church's creaky stairs to read about King's mother.
Keith's journal: "Day 1. Ebenezer Baptist Church. Today is my first day of my adventure trip. I am learning about Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s mother, Alberta Christine Williams King, was murdered in 1974. I am now in the administration building watching a tape of where he was last."
He will be the writer. He wanted the whole story about the madman who came to the church possessed of an irrational need to kill Martin "Daddy" King Sr., shooting down Alberta King instead.
We completed the circle of life in less than a block on Sweet Auburn, touring the home where King was born after stopping for a picture in front of his grave, which rises from an island at the center of the Martin Luther King Jr., Center for Nonviolent Social Change.
We stared at King's tomb until we were chased inside by a windy, drizzly cold front moving across the South. We saw a grainy video clip of King delivering his most famous speech; looked over his Nobel Peace Prize; his favorite suitcase, scuffed and scratched from travel, just like the old Bible packed inside. We admired his regal Sunday robes; traced the birth and death of segregation along a wall of pictures and words.
Danielle -- she's 15 and we call her Nikki -- says she hates writing, only she can't figure out why it is that once she starts, she can't ever seem to stop. At the King Center, she recorded the chronology of King's life: "1929 -- Dr. King born. ... 1951 -- enrolls in Boston University. ... 1953 -- marries Coretta."
Just before going on to "3rd stop: Dr. King's house," she added a final thought about the King Center: "Kind of disappointing."
I thought so too. Something was missing.
I didn't feel King's presence; didn't hear his voice; didn't get the sense that this was a special place. His bones were there, but his spirit was somewhere else. Maybe somewhere we had yet to go.
We left Atlanta that night, and as we settled into a hillside motel just outside Tuskegee, Alabama, we saw a short news story about a small Georgia church whose leaders wanted to dig up a child's body because one of her parents is black and all of the dead people in the cemetery are white.

NEXT STOP:
Tuskegee, following signs from the past.
Highway signs point the way to more historical truths. But the road to deeper understanding runs through an obstacle course of pop culture and thick ironies.