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Dean Rowley, Historian
Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site
National Park Service, Atlanta Georgia
CHRONOLOGY OF LIFE OF DR. LUTHER KING, JR.
1929 January 15 - Martin Luther King, Jr., is born to Rev. and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. at 501 Auburn Avenue in Atlanta, Georgia.
1935 - 1944- King attends David T. Howard Elementary, Atlanta University Laboratory School, and Booker T. Washington High School. He passes the entrance examination to Morehouse College (Atlanta) without graduating high school.
1947 King is licensed to preach and becomes assistant to his father, who is pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
1948 February- King is ordained to the Baptist ministry.
June- King graduates from Morehouse College with a B.A. degree in Sociology.
September- King enters Crozier Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. Here he begins a serious study of the life and teachings of Mahatma Gandhi.
1951 May- Received the Bachelor of Divinity Degree from Crozier Theological Seminary, Chester Pennsylvania.
1951 Fall- While studying at Boston University's School of Theology, met Coretta Scott who was studying at the New England Conservatory of Music.
June 18- King marries Coretta Scott at her hometown in Marion, Alabama.
1954 May- The U.S. Supreme Court rules unanimously in Brown vs. Board of Education. Racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional.
October- Rev. King is installed as the 20th pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955 May 31- Supreme Court orders desegregation with "all deliberate speed."
June- King earns a Ph.D. degree in Systematic Theology from Boston University.
December 1- Mrs. Rosa Parks, a forty-two year old seamstress is arrested because she refuses to give up her bus seat to a white man.
December 5- The bus boycott starts and King is elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association.
1955 December 10- The Montgomery Bus Company suspends service in Black neighborhoods.
1956 January 26- King is arrested in Montgomery on a charge of traveling thirty miles per hour in a twenty-five-mile-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 in 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 part of a conspiracy to hinder and prevent the operation of business without "just or legal cause."
June 4- A U.S. district court rules that racial segregation on city bus lines is unconstitutional.
August 10- Dr. King is a speaker before the platform committee of Democratic Party in Chicago.
October 30- Mayor Gayle Montgomery instructs the city's legal department "to file such proceedings as it may deem to stop the operation of car pools and transportation systems growing out of the boycott."
November 13- The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the decision of the three-judge district court in declaring unconstitutional Alabama's state and local laws requiring segregation on buses.
December 20- Federal injunctions prohibiting segregation on buses are served on city and bus company officials in Montgomery. Injunctions are also served on state officials.
December 21- Montgomery buses are integrated.
1957 January 27- An unexploded bomb is discovered on the front porch of the King's house.
February- The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is founded.
February 18- Time Magazine puts Dr. King on its cover.
May 17- Dr. King delivers speech for the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom celebrating the third anniversary of the Supreme Court's desegregation decision. The speech, entitled "Give Us The Ballot," is given at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington, D.C.
June 13- Dr. King has a conference 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 the Justice.
October 23- A second child, Martin Luther King III is born to Dr. and Mrs. King.
1958 June 23- Dr. King along with Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, A. Phillip Randolph, and Lester Granger, meets 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 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, a forty-two lady, who is subsequently alleged to be mental deranged. The stabbing occurs in the heart of Harlem while Dr. King is auto graphing his recently published book. His condition is 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.
February 2- March 10- Dr. and Mrs. King spend a month in India, studying Gandhi's techniques of nonviolence, as guests of Prime Minister Nehru.
1960 January 24- The King family moves to Atlanta. Dr. King becomes co-pastor, with his father, of the Ebenezer Baptist Church.
1960 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 falsified his 1956 and 1958 Alabama state income returns.
April 15- The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) is founded to coordinate student protest at Shaw University, 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.
June 10- Dr. King and A. Phillip Randolph announce plans for picketing both the Republican and Democratic Conventions.
June 24- Dr. King has a conference 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 trespass law.
October 22-27- The Atlanta Charges are dropped. All jailed demonstrators are released except for 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, GA. He is then transferred to the Reidsville State Prison on a $2,000 bond.
1961 January 30- A third child, Dexter Scott King, is born to Dr. and Mrs. King.
May - First group of Freedom Riders, organized by CORE, (Congress for Racial Equality) leaves Washington, D.C. shortly after the Supreme Court has outlawed segregation in interstate transportation terminals. The bus is burned outside Anniston, Alabama. The Freedom Riders are beaten in Birmingham, and arrested in Jackson, Mississippi. They spend forty to sixty days in Parchman Penitentiary.
December 15 - 16- Dr. King arrives in Albany, Georgia, in response to a call from the Albany Movement to desegregate public facilities, which began in January 1961. King is arrested at an Albany demonstration. He is charge with obstructing the sidewalk and parading without a permit.
1962 February - King is tried and convicted for leading a march in Albany.
May - King is invited to join the Birmingham protests.
July - King is arrested at an Albany city hall prayer vigil and is jailed on charges of failure to obey a police officer, obstructing the sidewalk and disorderly conduct.
September - James Meredith makes first attempt to enroll at the University of Mississippi. He is actually enrolled by order of the Supreme Court, and escorted onto the Oxford, Mississippi by U.S. marshals on Oct. 1, 1962.
October 16- Dr. King meets with President John F. Kennedy at the White House for an one hour conference.
1963 March 28- The King's fourth child, Bernice Albertine is born.
March - April - Sit-in demonstrations are held in Birmingham to protest segregated eating facilities. Dr. King is arrested during a demonstration.
April 16 - Dr. King writes " Letter from Birmingham Jail" while imprisoned for demonstrating.
May 3-5 - Eugene "Bull" Connor, Director of Public Safety of Birmingham,orders use of police dogs and fire hoses upon the marching protesters (young adults and children).
May 20 - The Supreme Court rules Birmingham's segregation ordinances unconstitutional.
June 11 - Governor George C. Wallace tries to stop 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 federalizes the Alabama National Guard, and Governor Wallace removes himself from blocking the entrance of the Negro students.
June- King's book Strength to Love is published.
June 12- Medgar Evers, NAACP leader in Jackson, Mississippi, is assassinated at his home in early morning darkness, by a rifle bullet. His memorial service is held in Jackson on June 15 and he is buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Washington, D.C. on June 19.
August 28 - The March on Washington, the first large 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 order of integrating 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.
November 22- President John F. 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 blacks and white students.
May-June- Dr. King joins other SCLC workers in demonstrations for integration of public accommodations in St. Augustine, FL. 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 (white)--are reported missing after a short trip to Philadelphia, Mississippi.
July 2- Dr. King attends the signing of the Civil Rights Act 1964, by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House.
July 18-23- Riots occur in Harlem. One black is killed.
August- Riots occur in New Jersey, Illinois, and Pennsylvania.
August 4- The bodies of civil right workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner are discovered by FBI Agents 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 United and former Black Muslim leader, is murdered by blacks in New York.
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, by 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 15- President Johnson addresses the nation and Congress. He describes the voting rights bill he will submit in two days and uses the slogan of the civil rights movement,"We Shall Overcome."
March 16- Black and White demonstrators are beaten by sheriff's deputies and police on horseback in Montgomery.
March 21-25- Over three thousand protest marchers leave for a march to Montgomery, 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, 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, Wilcox, and Eutaw counties, and in the cities of Montgomery and Birmingham.
August 6- The Voting Rights Act is signed by President Johnson.
August 11-16- In Watts, (Los Angeles) riots leave thirty-five dead, of whom twenty-eight are black.
1966 February- Dr. King rents an apartment in the black ghetto of Chicago.
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 it's owner.
March 25- The Supreme Court of the United States rules any poll tax unconstitutional.
Spring- Dr. King makes a tour of Alabama to help elect black candidates.
Spring- The Alabama Primary is held, the first time since Reconstruction that blacks have voted in any numbers.
May 16- An antiwar statement by Dr. King is read at a large rally to protest the war in Vietnam. Dr. King agrees to serve as co-chairman of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.
June- Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks (SNCC) uses 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 two-hundred and twenty-mile "March Against Fear" from Memphis, Tennessee, to Jackson, Mississippi.
July 10- Dr. King launches a drive to make Chicago an "open city" in regard to 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 schoolin 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 of 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 - King makes "Beyond Vietnam" speech at Riverside Church in New York City.
May 10-11- One black student is killed in rioting on the campus of all Negro Jackson State College, 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 & 23-30- Riots in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan. Twenty-three people die, seven hundred twenty-five are injured in Newark, N.J., and forty-three people die and three hundred twenty-four are injured in Detroit - the worst riot of the century. Dr. King, A. Phillip 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 aids enter jails 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.
March 28- Dr. King leads six thousand protesters on a march through downtown Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers. Disorders break out during which black youths loots stores. One sixteen-year is killed, fifty people are injured.
April 3- Dr. King delivers his last speech "I've Been to the Mountain Top," at the Memphis Masonic Temple.
April 4- Dr. King is assassinated by a sniper as he stands talking on balcony of his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. He dies in St. Joseph's Hospital from a gunshot wound in the neck. James Earl Ray is later captured and convicted of the murder.
(From The Words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Selected by Mrs. Coretta Scott King New York: Newmarket Press, 1983.)