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Chronology of Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
1929
January
15
Martin Luther King, Jr. is born
to Rev. and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. (former Alberta Christine Williams) in
Atlanta, Georgia.
1935 – 1944
Dr.
King attends David T. Howard Elementary School, Atlanta University Laboratory
School, and Booker T. Washington High School.
He passes the entrance examination to Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia
without graduating from high school.
1947
Dr.
King is licensed to preach.
1948
February
25
Dr. King is ordained to the
Baptist ministry and appointed associate pastor at Ebenezer.
June
8
Dr. King graduates from Morehouse
College with a BA degree in Sociology.
September
Dr. King enters Crozer
Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. After hearing Dr. A. J. Muste and
Dr. Mordecai W. Johnson preach on the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, he
begins to study Gandhi seriously.
1951
May 6-8
Dr. King graduates from Crozer
with a Bachelor of Divinity degree.
1953
June 18
Dr. King marries Coretta Scott in
Marion, Alabama.
1954
May
17
The Supreme Court of the United
States rules unanimously in Brown vs. Board of Education that racial segregation
in public schools is unconstitutional.
October
31
Rev. Martin Luther King, Sr.
appoints Dr. King as the twentieth pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in
Montgomery, Alabama.
1955
June
5
Dr. King receives a Ph.D. degree
in Systematic Theology from Boston University.
November
17
The Kings’ first child, Yolanda
Denise, is born in Montgomery, Alabama.
December
1
Mrs. Rosa Parks, a forty-two year
old Montgomery seamstress, refuses to relinquish her bus seat to a white man and
is arrested.
December
5
The first day of the Montgomery
bus boycott and the trial date of Mrs. Parks. A meeting of movement leaders is
held. Dr. King is unanimously elected president of the Montgomery Improvement
Association.
December
10
The Montgomery Bus Company
suspends service in black neighborhoods.
1956
January
26
Dr. King is arrested on a charge
of traveling thirty miles per hour in a twenty-five miles per hour zone in
Montgomery. He is released on his own recognizance.
January
30
A bomb is thrown onto the porch
of Dr. King’s Montgomery home. Mrs. King and Mrs. Roscoe Williams, wife of a
church member, are in the house with baby Yolanda Denise. No one is injured.
February
2
A suit is filed in Federal
District Court asking that Montgomery’s travel segregation laws be declared
unconstitutional.
February 21
Dr. King is indicted with other
figures in the Montgomery bus boycott on the charge of being party to a
conspiracy to hinder and prevent the operation of business without “just or
legal cause.”
June
4
A United States District Court
rules that racial segregation on city bus lines is unconstitutional.
August
10
Dr. King is a speaker before the
platform committee of the Democratic Party in Chicago, Illinois.
October 30
Mayor Gayle of Montgomery,
Alabama instructs the city’s legal department “to file such proceedings as
it may deem proper to stop the operation of car pools and transportation systems
growing out of the boycott.”
November
13
The United States Supreme Court
affirms the decision of the three-judge district court in declaring Alabama’s
state and local laws requiring segregation on buses unconstitutional.
December
20
Federal injunctions prohibiting
segregation on buses are served on city and bus company officials in Montgomery,
Alabama. Injunctions are also served on state officials.
ontgomery buses are
integrated.
1957
January
27
An unexploded bomb is discovered
on the front porch of the King’s house.
February
14
The Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC) is founded.
February
18
Dr. King is featured on the cover
of Time magazine.
May
17
Dr. King delivers a speech for
the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom celebrating the third anniversary of the
Supreme Court’s desegregation decision. The speech, titled, “Give Us The
Ballot,” is given at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.
June
13
Dr. King meets with the Vice
President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon.
September
President Dwight D. Eisenhower
federalizes the Arkansas National Guard to escort nine Negro students to an
all-white high school in Little Rock, Arkansas.
September
9
The first Civil Rights Act since
Reconstruction is passed by Congress, creating the Civil Rights Commission and
the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice.
October
23
A second child, Martin Luther
III, is born to Dr. and Mrs. King.
1958
June
23
Dr. King, along with Roy Wilkins
of the NAACP, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Granger meet with President Dwight
D. Eisenhower.
September
3
Dr. King is arrested on a charge
of loitering (later changed to “failure to obey an officer”) in the vicinity
of the Montgomery Recorder’s Court. He is released on $100.00 bond.
September
4
Dr. King is convicted after
pleading “Not Guilty” on the charge of failure to obey an officer. The fine
is paid almost immediately, over Dr. King’s objection, by Montgomery Police
Commissioner Clyde C. Sellers.
September
17
Dr. King’s book, Stride Toward
Freedom: The Montgomery Story, is published by Harper & Row.
September
20
Dr. King is stabbed in the chest
by Mrs. Izola Curry, who is subsequently alleged to be mentally deranged. The
stabbing occurs in Harlem, New York while Dr. King is autographing his recently
published book. His condition was said to be serious but not critical.
1959
January
30
Dr. King meets with Walter
Reuther, President of the United Auto Workers Union, in Detroit, Michigan.
February
2 - 10
Dr. and Mrs. King spend a month
in India studying Gandhi’s March techniques of nonviolence as guests of Prime
Minister Jawaharal Nehru.
1960
January
24
The King family moves to Atlanta,
Georgia. Dr. King becomes co-pastor, with his father, of the Ebenezer Baptist
Church.
February
1
The first lunch counter sit-in to
desegregate eating facilities is held by students in Greensboro, North Carolina.
February
17
A warrant is issued for Dr.
King’s arrest on charges that he had falsified his 1956 and 1958 Alabama state
income tax returns.
April
15
The Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded to coordinate student protests at Shaw
University in Raleigh, North Carolina on a temporary basis. (It is to become a
permanent organization in October 1960.) Dr. King and James Lawson are the
keynote speakers at the Shaw University founding.
May
28
Dr. King is acquitted of the tax
evasion charge by an all white jury in Montgomery, Alabama.
June
10
Dr. King and A. Philip Randolph
announce plans for picketing both the Republican and Democratic National
Conventions.
June
24
Dr. King meets with John F.
Kennedy (candidate for President of the United States) about racial matters.
October
19
Dr. King is arrested at an
Atlanta sit-in and is jailed on a charge of violating the state’s trespassing
law.
October
22 - 27
The trespassing charges are
dropped. All jailed demonstrators are released except Dr. King, who is held on a
charge of violating a probated sentence in a traffic arrest case. He is
transferred to the Dekalb County Jail in Decatur, Georgia, and is then
transferred to the Reidsville State Prison. He is released from the Reidsville
State Prison on a $2,000.00 bond.
1961
January
30
A third child, Dexter Scott, is
born to Dr. and Mrs. King in Atlanta, Georgia.
May
4
The first group of Freedom
Riders, with the intent of integrating interstate buses, leaves Washington, D.C.
by Greyhound bus. The group, organized by the Congress for Racial Equality
(CORE), leaves shortly after the Supreme Court has outlawed segregation in
interstate transportation terminals. The bus is burned outside of Anniston,
Alabama on May 14. A mob beats the Freedom Riders upon their arrival in
Birmingham, Alabama. The Freedom Riders are arrested in Jackson, Mississippi,
and spend forty to sixty days in Parchman Penitentiary.
December
15
Dr. King arrives in Albany,
Georgia in response to a call from Dr. W. G. Anderson, the leader of the Albany
Movement to desegregate public facilities, which began in January 1961.
December
16
Dr. King is arrested at an
Albany, Georgia demonstration. He is charged with obstructing the sidewalk and
parading without a permit.
1962
February
27
Dr. King is tried and convicted
for leading the December march in Albany, Georgia.
May
2
Dr. King is invited to join the
protests in Birmingham, Alabama.
July
27
Dr. King is arrested at an
Albany, Georgia city hall prayer vigil and jailed on charges of failure to obey
a police officer, obstructing the sidewalk and disorderly conduct.
September
20
James Meredith makes his first
attempt to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He is actually enrolled by
Supreme Court order and is escorted onto the Oxford, Mississippi campus by U.S.
Marshals on October 1, 1962.
October
16
Dr. King meets with President
John F. Kennedy at the White House for a one-hour conference.
1963
March
28
The King’s fourth child,
Bernice Albertine, is born.
March-April
Sit-in demonstrations are held in
Birmingham, Alabama to protest segregation of eating facilities. Dr. King is
arrested during a demonstration.
April
16
Dr. King writes the “Letter
From A Birmingham Jail” while imprisoned for demonstrating.
May
3 - 5
Eugene “Bull” Connor,
Director of Public Safety of Birmingham, Alabama, orders the use of police dogs
and fire hoses against the marching protesters, including young adults and
children.
May
20
The Supreme Court of the United
States rules Birmingham, Alabama’s segregation ordinances unconstitutional.
June
Dr. King’s book, Strength To
Love, is published by Harper & Row.
June
11
Governor George C. Wallace tries
to stop the court ordered integration of the University of Alabama by
“standing in the schoolhouse door” and personally refusing entrance to black
students and Justice Department officials. President John F. Kennedy then
federalizes the Alabama National Guard, and Governor Wallace removes himself
from blocking the entrance of the Negro students.
June
12
Medgar Evers, NAACP leader in
Jackson, Mississippi, is assassinated at his home in the early morning darkness.
His memorial service is held in Jackson on June 15. He is buried in Arlington
National Cemetery, Washington D.C. on June 19.
August
28
The March on Washington, the
first large-scale integrated protest march, is held in Washington, D.C. Dr. King
delivers his “I Have A Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Afterwards he and other Civil Rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy
in the White House.
September
2-10
Governor Wallace orders the
Alabama state troopers to stop the court ordered integration of Alabama’s
elementary and high schools until he is enjoined by court injunction from doing
so. By September 10 specific schools are actually integrated by court order.
September
15
Four young girls are killed in a
Birmingham, Alabama church bombing.
November
22
President Kennedy is assassinated
in Dallas, Texas.
1964
Summer
COFO (Council of Federated
Organizations) initiates the Mississippi Summer Project, a voter registration
drive organized and run by black and white students.
May
- June
Dr. King joins other SCLC workers
in a demonstration for the integration of public accommodations in St.
Augustine, Florida. He is jailed.
June
Dr. King’s book, Why We Can’t
Wait, is published by Harper & Row.
June
21
Three civil rights workers, James
Chaney (black), Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner (both white), are reported
missing after a short trip to Philadelphia, Mississippi.
July
2
Dr. King attends the signing of
the Public Accommodations Bill, (Part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964) by
President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House.
July
18-23
Riots occur in Harlem, New York.
One black man is killed.
August
Riots occur in New Jersey,
Illinois and Pennsylvania.
August
4
The bodies of civil rights
workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are discovered by
FBI Agents buried near the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi. Neshoba County
Sheriff Rainey and his deputy, Cecil Price, are allegedly implicated in the
murders.
September
Dr. King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy
visit West Berlin at the invitation of Mayor Willy Brandt.
September
18
Dr. King has an audience with
Pope Paul VI at the Vatican.
December
10
Dr. King receives the Nobel Peace
Prize in Oslo, Norway.
1965
February
21
Malcolm X, leader of the
Organization of Afro-American Unity and former Black Muslim leader, is murdered
in New York City.
March
7
A group of marching demonstrators
(from SNCC and SCLC) led by SCLC’s Hosea Williams are beaten when crossing the
Edmund Pettus Bridge on their planned march to Montgomery, Alabama, from Selma,
Alabama. Their attackers were state highway patrolmen under the direction of Al
Lingo and sheriff’s deputies under the leadership of Jim Clark. An order by
Governor Wallace had prohibited the march.
March
9
Unitarian minister, James Reeb,
is beaten by four white segregationists in Selma. He dies two days later.
March 15
President Johnson addresses the
nation and Congress. He describes the voting rights bill he will submit to
Congress in two days and uses the slogan of the Civil Rights Movement, “We
Shall Overcome.”
March
16
Sheriff’s deputies and police
on horseback in Montgomery, Alabama beat black and white demonstrators.
March
21 – 25
Over three thousand protest
marchers leave Selma for a march to Montgomery, Alabama protected by federal
troops. They are joined along the way by a total of twenty-five thousand
marchers. Upon reaching the capitol, they hear an address by Dr. King.
March
25
Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, wife of a
Detroit Teamsters Union business agent, is shot and killed while driving a
carload of marchers back to Selma.
July
Dr. King visits Chicago,
Illinois. SCLC joins with the Coordinating Council of Community Organizations (CCCO),
led by Al Raby, in the Chicago Project.
August
- December
In Alabama, SCLC spearheads voter
registration campaigns in Green and Wilcox counties, and in the cities of
Montgomery, Birmingham, and Eutaw, Alabama.
August
6
The 1965 Voting Rights Act is
signed by President Johnson.
August
11-16
In Watts, the black ghetto of Los
Angeles, riots leave a total of thirty-five dead. Twenty-eight are black.
1966
February
Dr. King rents an apartment in
the black ghetto of Chicago, Illinois.
February 23
Dr. King meets with Elijah
Muhammad, leader of the Black Muslims, in Chicago.
March
Dr. King takes over a Chicago
slum building and is sued by its owner.
March
25
The Supreme Court of the United
States rules all poll tax unconstitutional.
Spring
Dr. King tours Alabama to help
elect black candidates.
The Alabama Primary is held, and
for the first time since Reconstruction, blacks vote in significant numbers.
May
16
An antiwar statement by Dr. King
is read at a large Washington rally to protest the war in Vietnam. Dr. King
agrees to serve as a co-chairman of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam.
June
Stokely Carmichael and Willie
Ricks (SNCC) use the slogan “Black Power” in public for the first time
before reporters in Greenwood, Mississippi.
June 6
James Meredith is shot soon after
beginning his 220-mile “March Against Fear” from Memphis, Tennessee to
Jackson, Mississippi.
July
10
Dr. King launches a drive to make
Chicago an “open city” regarding housing.
August
5
Dr. King is stoned in Chicago as
he leads a march through crowds of angry whites in the Gage Park section of
Chicago’s southwest side.
September
SCLC launches a project with the
aim of integrating schools in Grenada, Mississippi.
Fall
SCLC initiates the Alabama
Citizen Education Project in Wilcox County.
1967
January
Dr. King writes his book Where Do
We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? while in Jamaica.
March
12
Alabama is ordered to desegregate
all public schools.
March
25
Dr. King attacks the
government’s Vietnam policy in a speech at the Chicago Coliseum.
April
4
Dr. King makes a statement about
the war in Vietnam, “Beyond Vietnam,” at the Riverside Church in New York
City.
May
10-11
One black student is killed in a
riot on the campus of all Negro Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi.
July
6
The Justice Department reports
that more than 50 percent of all eligible black voters are registered in
Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana and South Carolina.
July
12-17
Twenty-three people die and 725
are injured in riots in Newark, New Jersey.
July
23-30
Forty-three die and 324 are
injured in the Detroit riots -- the worst of the century.
July
26
Black leaders, Martin Luther
King, Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins and Whitney Young appeal for an end
to the riots, “which have proved ineffective and damaging to the civil rights
cause and the entire nation.”
October
30
The Supreme Court upholds the
contempt-of-court convictions of Dr. King and seven other black leaders who led
the 1963 marches in Birmingham, Alabama. Dr. King and his aides enter jail to
serve four-day sentences.
November
27
Dr. King announces the formation
by SCLC of a Poor People’s Campaign, with the aim of representing the problems
of poor blacks and whites.
1968
February
12
Sanitation workers strike in
Memphis, Tennessee.
March 28
Dr. King leads six thousand
protesters on a march through downtown Memphis in support of striking sanitation
workers. Disorder breaks out during which black youths loot stores. One
sixteen-year-old is killed and fifty people are injured.
April
3
Dr. King’s last speech titled
“I’ve Been to the Mountain Top” is delivered at Mason Temple in Memphis,
Tennessee.
April
4
Dr. King is assassinated as he
stands talking on the balcony of his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in
Memphis. He dies in St. Joseph’s Hospital from a gunshot wound in the neck.
April
9
Dr. King is buried in Atlanta,
Georgia.
June
5
Presidential candidate Senator
Robert Kennedy is shot in Los Angeles and dies the next day.
1986
January 18
Following passage of Public Law
98-144, President Ronald Reagan signs a proclamation declaring the third Monday
in January of each year a public holiday in honor of the birthday of Martin
Luther King, Jr.
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