An historic Camden, NJ, home where Martin Luther King Jr. lived as a seminarian was severely damaged in a fire early Saturday, officials said.

The blaze at the abandoned Walnut Street home broke out just before 3 a.m., 6ABC reported.

King lived at the residence between 1949 and 1951, while he and a classmate were attending the now-closed Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa., according to NJ.com.

According to the MLK House Camden website, the future civil rights leader slept, ate, prepared his messages, and plotted his first anti-discrimination lawsuit while living on Walnut Street.

City spokesperson Vincent Basra told NJ.com firefighters arrived to find heavy flames coming from the rear of the second floor of the home, and that part of the roof collapsed.

The flames also spread next door, forcing a residents inside to flee, Basra added.

No injuries were reported, and the cause of fire is underway, according to the reports.

Local activists who have been working to preserve the home and turn it into a museum said Saturday’s disaster with not stop their efforts — especially since the building needed some work to begin with.

“The whole inside had to be gutted and redone anyway, the whole roof had to be done it was in terrible shape prior to this,” Pastor Amir Khan, a Camden County activist who purchased the home last year, told NJ.com. “So I mean, we’re not going to miss a beat on this.”