GeorgiaDowntown Dublin, the seat of Laurens County, carries an outsized place in civil rights history: on April 17, 1944, a fifteen-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his first public speech, an oration titled "The Negro and the Constitution," at Dublin's First African Baptist Church during a Colored Elks convention, a short distance from the courthouse square. The current Laurens County Courthouse itself was built in 1962 to a design by the firm Cunningham and Forehand and is the fourth courthouse to serve the county, which was created in 1807. It replaced an ornate 1895 building by the noted Atlanta firm Bruce & Morgan, whose imposing clock tower had long dominated the Dublin square. The modern courthouse is generally regarded as nonhistoric and is not individually listed on the National Register. Dublin today marks King's early visit with a monument, remembering the town as a place where the dream first found its voice.
Laurens County Courthouse
The stone-and-brick heart of every Georgia county.
Laurens County Courthouse is a courthouse in Dublin, Laurens County. It is one of 73 historic sites cataloged in Laurens County on Georgia Roam.
The site sits at 32.5402, -82.9039 near Dublin. The nearest cataloged historic site is Laurens County (historical marker), about under a tenth of a mile away. Others within a short drive include United States Post Office and Court House, Old Dublin Cemetery, and Captain Hardy Smith House.
This record is drawn from the USGS Geographic Names Information System. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.
Downtown Dublin, the seat of Laurens County, carries an outsized place in civil rights history: on April 17, 1944, a fifteen-year-old Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his first public speech, an oration titled "The Negro and the Constitution," at Dublin's First African Baptist Church during a Colored Elks convention, a short distance from the courthouse square. The current Laurens County Courthouse itself was built in 1962 to a design by the firm Cunningham and Forehand and is the fourth courthouse to serve the county, which was created in 1807. It replaced an ornate 1895 building by the noted Atlanta firm Bruce & Morgan, whose imposing clock tower had long dominated the Dublin square. The modern courthouse is generally regarded as nonhistoric and is not individually listed on the National Register. Dublin today marks King's early visit with a monument, remembering the town as a place where the dream first found its voice.
Sources: en.wikipedia.orgvanishinggeorgia.comvisitdublinga.org
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