In 1954, Martin Luther King, Jr. began his first full-time pastorship at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. While at Dexter, King became president of the Montgomery Improvement Association and led his congregation and other citizens during the Montgomery bus boycott. When the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) established its headquarters in Atlanta in 1960, King resigned from Dexter and joined his father as co-pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

Founded in 1877, Dexter was originally called the Second Colored Baptist Church. Congregates met in a hall once used as a slave trader's pen until 1885 when the first worship service was held in the basement of the current structure. On Thanksgiving Day in 1889, the first service was held in the sanctuary, and the church was renamed Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. The church began its activist tradition under the leadership of King's predecessor, Reverend Vernon Johns, whose militant words and boldness kindled the spirit of resistance for blacks at Dexter and throughout Montgomery.

King accepted the call to pastor Dexter while completing his doctoral studies at Boston University. Shortly after accepting this position, he proposed a list of recommendations for the revitalization of the church, which were unanimously accepted. King insisted that every church member become a registered voter and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). He also organized a social and political action committee "designed to keep the congregation intellectually informed on the social, political, and economic situations."

On 2 December 1955, King conducted a meeting in the basement of the Dexter Street Church which resulted in the decision to launch the Montgomery bus boycott. Later, as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, King organized and helped direct the boycott from his office in the lower half of the sanctuary.

In 1976, the city of Montgomery added the church, which was renamed the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Church, to a list of designated historic sites.

Clayborne Carson, Ralph Luker, and Penny A. Russell, eds., The Papers of Martin Luther Jung, Jr., Volume II: Rediscovering Precious Values, July 1951–November 1955, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994)

Clayborne Carson, Stewart Burns, Susan Carson, Pete Hol loran, Dana Powell, eds., The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., Volume III: Birth of a New Age, December 1955–December 1956, (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997)

Clayborne Carson, ed., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr. (New York: Warner Books, 1998)

Zelia S. Evans and J.T. Alexander, eds., DexterAvenueBaptistChurch: 1877–1977 (Montgomery: Dexter Ave. Baptist, 1978)