King in Boston

Remember that Martin Luther King Jr. lived in Boston for three years, as a doctoral student, before he became famous. He was well aware of politics and history at that time of his life; I think it quite likely that he sought inspiration by visiting one or more of the city's historic sites during his time here. The Freedom Trail didn't exist yet -- it was first created a couple of years after he graduated -- but of course places like Faneuil Hall and Old South Meeting House were open to visitors. At the time there was nothing to mark the site of the Tea Party except a small plaque on an Atlantic Ave. building, so it's unlikely that he visited there.

He was also quite aware of the history of his own local parish, Twelfth Baptist Church, which had played a leading role in the abolitionist movement when it was on Phillips Street, on Beacon Hill.

I suspect he gave his 1965 speech on the Common simply because it was capable of holding the crowds that he was seeking, unlike Faneuil Hall, whose listed capacity used to be 999 people (and is somewhat less today).

It's also documented that he spoke at Christ Church on Garden Street in Harvard Square in 1967, when he spoke out against the Vietnam war.

He lived at three different addresses during his time in Boston, all near what was then the heart of African-American life in the city, the corner of Columbus Ave. and Massachusetts Ave. His first residence was a rooming house at 170 Saint Botolph St., where he lived for one term, and quickly realized that he was living on the "white" side of the tracks even though he was just 3 blocks from the center of the city's black neighborhood. He then rented an apartment at 397 Massachusetts Ave. with some graduate student friends. After marrying Coretta in summer 1953, they moved to another apartment at 396 Northampton St. (now demolished). Twelfth Baptist Church at that time was just a few blocks away, on Shawmut Ave. near the current site of Melnea Cass Blvd.