Historical Name: Martin Luther King, Jr.
Common Name: Sycamore
Latin Name: Platanus occidentalis
The Martin Luther King, Jr. Sycamore stands in front of Brown Chapel AME, a church in Selma, Alabama where the dedicated young minister made stirring speeches about civil rights. Those who listened were often prompted to action. In 1965, led by King, hundreds of people marched 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery, the state capitol, marking one of the high points of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. This tree was grown from a seed taken from the Martin Luther King, Jr. Sycamore, and was planted into UCNJ’s Historic Tree Grove in 1997.
(text adapted from American Forests)