Some of the most valuable portions of my time off from work in 2017 were spent going north to learn more about the South.

TONY JUDNICH @Tonyjnwfdn

Some of the most valuable portions of my time off from work in 2017 were spent going north to learn more about the South.

Specifically, I visited several landmarks that help tell the story of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

Last November, I went to the handsome, sturdy house in Atlanta where he was born on Jan. 15, 1929. The home is part of the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Site.

While touring the house, I and other visitors learned from a National Park Service guide that King was a mischievous kid. The guide said King and his younger brother, Alfred, used to tear the limbs and heads off of the dolls belonging to their older sister, Christine. They would use the heads as baseballs.

So apparently, the journey to nonviolence got off to a rough start.

I also found out that:

• King’s main household chore was gathering coal from the coal bin behind the house and feeding the furnace. He loved this job; said it was a man’s job

• His allowance was 25 cents per week. With that money, he would go to a store across the street and buy a soda, bag of chips and three cookies — and still have change left over

• Christine, Martin and Alfred each were born in their parents’ house because their father, the Rev. Martin Luther King Sr., did not trust segregated hospitals

• MLK Jr., along with Gandhi, was influenced by Henry David Thoreau’s views on civil disobedience.

During my visit to the MLK Jr. National Historic Site, I also learned that Alfred died 15 months after his brother was assassinated.

The cause of Alfred’s death was accidental drowning in a swimming pool. But he reportedly was an excellent swimmer, and his loved ones suspect his death was a result of foul play.

The family also suffered another tragedy: Dr. King’s mother, Alberta, who was the organist at Ebenezer Baptist Church where MLK had been a preacher, was shot and killed in the church by a black man six years after her son’s assassination.

Visitors to the church can sit in a pew and listen to recordings of MLK’s sermons, which included his fiery messages about economic inequality and other forms of injustice, and equally passionate words of hope and strength. Listening to his words made me want to go back in time and help him make a difference.

Shortly before going to Atlanta, I had driven to Selma, Alabama. I wanted to see the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

As a civil rights icon, one of King’s many examples of nonviolent action included co-leading a memorial and protest march from Selma to the state capital in Montgomery in March 1965. That march occurred shortly after the infamous “Bloody Sunday” attack by Alabama state troopers on voting rights’ activists in Selma.

During my visit to Selma, I walked across the bridge that spans the wide and muddy Alabama River while thinking of the brave marchers and wondering why the bridge still bears Pettus’ name.

In addition to serving as a U.S. senator and Confederate brigadier general, Pettus was a grand dragon of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. While his name endures on the bridge, so do several monuments at the base of the bridge on the south side of the river.

They pay tribute to civil rights leaders such as current U.S. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., whose skull was fractured in the Bloody Sunday attack. Nearby stand makeshift memorials for slaves and for black soldiers who fought in the Civil War.

Earlier in ’17, I visited Memphis, Tennessee, to see the historic Lorraine Motel, where King was assassinated on April 4, 1968. After his death, the motel was turned into the National Civil Rights Museum.

From a hallway, museum visitors can peer through a glass window into room 306, where King spent some of his final living moments.

One of the beds remains a bit unmade. Room-service dishes still sit on a small table. The balcony where the 39-year-old King was killed is a few steps away.

Here are the distances from Fort Walton Beach to the cities that are home to some of the most profound places in American history:

• Atlanta: 324 miles (about five hours)

• Selma: 172 miles (a little more than three hours)

• Memphis: 489 miles (about seven hours and 40 minutes).