Martin Luther King
Date of Birth: Born on January 15, 1929
Place of Birth : Atlanta, Georgia
Parents: Father - Baptist minister Michael Luther King
Mother: Schoolteacher Alberta King
1929This timeline starts on January 15, 1929 when Michael Luther King Jr. (later known as Martin Luther King Jr.) was born in Atlanta, Georgia. His parents were Baptist minister Michael Luther King and Schoolteacher Alberta King.
In due course his father changed both of their names to Martin to honor the German Protestant, Martin Luther
He had an older sister called Willie Christine (September 11, 1927)
1930His brother named Alfred Daniel was born (July 30, 1930 – July 1, 1969).
1932January: King begins nursery school
1935 - 19421935: Baltimore Court rules Donald Murray must be admitted to white law school
September: Martin attends the Yonge Street Elementary School. His education continued over the next few years at the David T. Howard Elementary School and the Atlanta University Laboratory School
1939WW2 begins
1942 - 1943Martin attends Booker T. Washington High School but leaves before graduation due to his acceptance and early admission in the Atlanta Morehouse College program for advanced placement
April: C.O.R.E. (The Congress of Racial Equality) is founded by James Farmer
May 14, 1943: The first lunch counter sit-ins took place in Chicago, Illinois at Jack Spratt’s Coffee Shop
1944September: Martin Luther King attends Morehouse College in Atlanta.
1945WW2 ends
1946June 3: The U.S. Supreme Court banned segregation in interstate bus travel
Aug 10: Race riots occur in Athens, Alabama
September 29: Race riots erupt in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
December 5: The National Committee on Civil Rights is created by President Harry Truman to investigate racism in America
1947Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. decided to become a minister and delivered his first prepared sermon in his father’s church, Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, at age 18 in the Summer of 1947
April 9: “Freedom Riders” tested the laws of interstate bus travel in the segregated South
April 15: Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to play major league baseball for the Brooklyn Dodgers
Committee on Civil Rights under President Truman condemn racial injustices towards Blacks in America in a report dated October 29, 1947, entitled “To Secure These Rights.”
1948February 25: Martin Luther King is appointed to serve as the assistant pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
June 8: King graduates from Morehouse College in Atlanta with a B.A. in Sociology at the age of 19
September 14: He begins attending Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.
1951May: He graduates from Crozer with a Bachelor of Divinity degree at the age of 22
September: Begins studying systematic theology as a graduate student at Boston University
1953June 18: Martin marries Coretta Scott at her parent’s home in Marion, Alabama. Coretta was the younger daughter of Obadiah and Bernice McMurray Scott
June 19: The first bus boycott starts in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
1954May 17: U.S Supreme Court rules that racial segregation in the public schools of America was unconstitutional
September 1: Martin Luther King is appointed pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955May 31: U.S. Supreme Court orders desegregation of the public schools “with all deliberate speed”
June 5: King earns his Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University
August 28: Emmett Till, age 14, was tortured and lynched in Money, Mississippi
November 17:Yoland Denise, King’s first child, is born at Montgomery, Alabama
November 25: The Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation in buses and all waiting rooms involved in interstate travel
December 1: Rosa Parks, a 42 year old seamstress, is arrested in Montgomery, Alabama for refusing to give her seat on the bus to a white male passenger.
December 5: Martin Luther King becomes the president of the Montgomery Improvement Association which was organised due to protest against the incident involving Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott begins
1956January 30: Dr. Martin Luther King’s house is bombed, there are no injuries
December 21: The Montgomery buses are desegregated and black passengers could legally take any seat on the city’s buses
1957January – The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is formed to form a strategy for ending segregation, and Martin Luther King is elected president.
January 27: An unexploded bomb was discovered on the family’s front porch
February 18: Martin Luther King is featured on the cover of Time magazine.
March 6: Visits Ghana in West Africa.
May 17: At the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial, King’s delivers his first national address entitled, “Give Us The Ballot.”
September 9: Congress of the United States passes the Civil Rights Act of 1957
September 24/25: President Eisenhower sent in federal troops to enforce integration of schools in Little Rock. Nine black students were escorted into the school by court order
October 23: King’s second child, Martin Luther King III is born at Montgomery, Alabama
1958June 23: Dr. King meets with President Eisenhower
September 17: King’s book, Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story is published.
September 20: Dr. King is stabbed by a woman while at a book signing in a department store in Harlem, New York
1959February 2 - March 10: Martin Luther King and Coretta visit India as guests of Prime Minister Nehru
King’s book, The Measure of a Man is published
1960February: King and his family move to Atlanta where he serves as assistant pastor to his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church
May 6: President Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960 into law
October 19: Dr. King is arrested for breaking the state of Georgia’s trespassing law while picketing in Atlanta.
1961January 31: Their third child, Dexter Scott is born in Atlanta, Georgia
May 4: An integrated group of ‘Freedom Riders’ left Washington, DC on Greyhound buses, and, upon arrival near Anniston, Alabama, the bus was burned, and the riders were beaten
October 16: Martin Luther King meets with President Kennedy to gain his support for the civil rights movement.
December 16: Dr. King and other protesters are arrested in Albany, Georgia
1962September 30: Riots break out on the campus at the University of Mississippi
1963March 28: Dr. King’s fourth child, Bernice Albertine is born in Atlanta, Georgia
April 3: Birmingham, Alabama police chief, Eugene “Bull” Connor, becomes a symbol of racism when he broadcasts his methods of using dogs and fire hoses to stop peaceful demonstrators of the Black protest movement
April 12: Dr.King is arrested at a Sit-in demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama protesting against public eating facilities
April 16: Whilst in his Birmingham cell Dr. King writes about his concerns on the pace of justice in civil rights for Black Americans in his “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”
June 11: Governor George Wallace stands in the door of the University of Alabama, refusing the entrance of Black students
June 12: Civil Rights Leader Medgar Evers was assassinated in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi
August 28: Martin Luther King meets with President John F. Kennedy and after their meeting Dr. King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to a crowd estimated at 250,000 at the Marched on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
September 1: Dr. King publishes his second book, The Strength to Love
September 15: Four little girls are killed when a bomb explodes inside the church where the children are seated. Later Dr. King delivers a eulogy for three of the girls
September 18: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama is attacked
November 22: President John F. Kennedy is assassinated
1964January 3: Time Magazine honors Dr. King as “Man of the Year”
January 18: Dr. King meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson
March 26: Dr. King meets Malcolm X
June 4: King’s third book, Why We Can’t Wait is published
June 11: Martin Luther King is arrested in St. Augustine, Florida for attempting to eat in a white-only restaurant
July 2: Dr. King invited to the White House while President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Public Accommodation and Fair Employment sections to the Civil Rights Act of 1964
August 4: Three civil rights workers were killed on a trip through Philadelphia, Mississippi. Their names were James Chaney who was black and Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner who were both white
December 10: Martin Luther King becomes the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway for his efforts to end segregation and racial discrimination through non-violent means.
1965February 21: Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City
March 7: The Edmund Pettus Bridge incident took place in Selma, Alabama where marchers were beaten and tear-gassed
March 17 – 25: King and 25,000 other protestors march from Selma to Montgomery for voting rights.
March 25: Mrs. Viola Liuzzo was killed driving some of the black marchers back to Selma
August 6: The 1965 Voting Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson
August 11/12: The Watts Riots erupted in California when Thirty-five people died. The National Guard had been called in to stop America’s worst single racial disturbance.
1966January 13: Robert C. Weaver becomes the first Black to serve in the cabinet as Secretary of Housing and Urban Affairs
May 16: Dr. King speaks out against the government’s policy in Vietnam
June 6: James Meredith was shot and wounded on the “March Against Fear” from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson Mississippi
June 7: After the shooting Dr. King, Floyd McKissick, and Stokely Carmichael resume the “March Against Fear” from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi
June 27: SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael publicly uses the militant term, “Black Power” in Greenwood, Mississippi,
July 18-23: The National Guard are called in when Summer Riots break out in Chicago, Illinois, Cleveland, Omaha, Nebraska and Ohio
August 6: Dr. King marches on the issue for open housing in Chicago and is stoned by angry onlookers
1967January: Dr. King’s fourth book, Where Do We Go from Here? Chaos or Community is published
June 23: Thurgood Marshall is the first Black on the U.S. Supreme Court
May 1 - October 1: Summer riots where 43 people are killed. Dr. Martin Luther King makes appeals to stop the riots
1968March 28 – King leads striking sanitation workers in a march in Memphis, Tennessee. The march erupts in violence.
April 3 – Dr. King delivers his last speech at a rally at Mason Temple (the national headquarters of the Church of God in Christ), Memphis. The famous and inspiring “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop speech ”
April 4: While standing on the balcony of his room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee Dr. Martin Luther King is shot and killed
April 5: President Lyndon B. Johnson decrees that Sunday, April 7, 1968 be a day of national mourning in honor of Dr. King
April 7: His body is viewed by mourners on the campus of Spelman College in Atlanta
April 9: His funeral was held at Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta. More than 300,000 people marched through Atlanta with his mule-drawn coffin. He is buried in South View Cemetery, Atlanta
June 8: James Earl Ray was arrested at a London airport for the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King.
May 10: James Earl Ray was sentenced to 99 years in prison
1977He was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy Carter
1986Martin Luther King, Jr. Day was established as a national holiday in the United States
1998April 23: James Earl Ray the convicted killer of D. King died in prison of liver failure
2004Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr was posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal
An incredible dedication to the late Martin Luther King. As stated in this clip reffering to the monument ” it is so appropriate to have on the front porch of America”.
- Coretta Scott King”
Martin Luther King Jr. had enormous impact on the desegregation of the United States in the 1960’s. He had arguable the largest impact of any civil rights leader of his time. King began his civil rights activities in 1955 when he protested Montgomery’s segregated bussystem. The protest was started after an African American bus passenger by the name of Rosa Parks was arrested after failing to give up her seat to a white passenger. After the arrest African Americans encouraged others to boycott the Montgomery bus system. They formed a secret group called the Montgomery Improvement Association and elected King there leader. The group chose to use the great weapon of protest to desegregate the Montgomery bus lines. The groups protest worked and soon the bus lines no longer had segregated rules and African Americans no longer boycott the buses.
In the same year that the the bus boycott was ended Kings house was bombed by angry whites intent on killing King. They were unsuccessful and no one in the house was hurt, and King was in no way swayed stopped from insisting on nonviolent protests. In 1957 along with several other black ministers King formed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to expand the nonviolent battle against discrimination. In 1957 segregation existed in every state in one way or another, but mostly in the south, where Public Schools, transportation, hotels, and restaurants were all segregated. In the year of 1960 King moved himself and his family to Montgomery to devote more of his effort towards the work of the SCLC.
the beginning of the 60’s was a time when segregation protests increased in an amazing number. In 1960 Black college students across the country began sitting at lunch counters and other public places where they weren’t allowed or where segregation was present. In 1963 King and his associates at the SCLC launched a campaign against discrimination using large gatherings to protest it. The gatherings were interrupted by the Police who used dogs and fire hoses. The violence was published on TV by the media and a cry out against segregation was initiated in the United States. President Kennedy proposed a bill to deal with this to congress.
Possibly the most well known civil rights activity took place in August of 1963. King along with Civil rights leaders from across the country organized a march in Washington DC. The event was titled the March on Washington. It was used to encourage congress to pass the bill that president Kennedy had created. Many whites along with about 200,000 blacks gathered at the base of the Lincoln memorial where Martin Luther King Jr. presented his best known speech. Entitled I have a dream King’s speech defined the moral basis behind the civil rights movement. The march one major victory in congress by 1964 when congress proceeded to pass the civil rights bill that Kennedy had created, before his death. The civil rights act of 1964 was created and it prohibited racial discrimination in public places and called for equal opportunity in employment and education for African Americans.
In 1965 congress passed another bill the voting rights act of 1965. The voting rights act rid states of all laws prohibiting African Americans from casting there vote in all public elections. The bill was passed after King helped organize a protest in Selma, Alabama. The protest was in response to white officials trying to deny black citizens the right to vote in several ways. Many hundreds of protesters attempted a march from Selma to Montgomery, the state capitol. Police officers arrived as the protest got underway with use of tear gas and clubs the police officers made a bloody attack on the protesters. After the Selma protest King continued to organize protest but not any on such a grand scale. Up until the point of his death King continually fought for the rights of African Americans in peaceful ways. Peaceful ways sometimes interrupted by not so peaceful police officers.
Martin Luther King, Jr.”
