Nashville's first secondary magnet for grades 7-12, Martin Luther King Jr. High School opened in August 1986 in the city's historic Pearl High school building. The school is located in the inner city and is bordered on the north and south by two public housing projects, the renowned Meharry Medical College and Fisk University.

As part of a desegregation order, the school was designed to attract a voluntary cross section of academically able students from diverse groups in Metropolitan Nashville-Davidson County. It began with grades 7-9, added a grade a year and graduated the first class in 1990.

As a magnet school centered in an African-American community, the traditional academic and vocational curriculum that existed in the old Pearl High School program changed. The new Martin Luther King Jr. High School became a magnet for health sciences and engineering, dropping the vocational strand. The senior year Practica program is unique to MLK and provides a clinical setting for mentorships in science, engineering and related areas.