FREE ESSAY ON MARTIN LUTHER KING

MARTIN LUTHER KING

Key events in the life of MLK and the civil rights movement
1929
Martin Luther King, Jr. is born to Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. on January
15 in Atlanta, Georgia.
1947
King is licensed to preach and begins assisting his father, who is a pastor of Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta.
1948
King is ordained as a Baptist minister on February 25. In June, he graduates from
Morehouse College in Atlanta and receives a scholarship to study divinity at Crozer
Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.
1949
While studying at Crozer, King attends a lecture by Dr. Mordecai Johnson on the life and
work of Mahatma Gandhi and is inspired to delve deeper into the teachings of the Indian
social philosopher.
1951
King graduates from Crozer with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. He is class valedictorian
and winner of the Pearl Plafker Award for most outstanding student. In September, he
begins doctoral studies in theology at Boston University, where he studies personalism
with Edgar Sheffield Brightman and L. Harold De Wolf.
1953
King marries Coretta Scott at her family's home in Marion, Alabama on June 18.
1954
In May, the Brown v. Board of Education decision paves the way for school desegregation
as the Supreme Court of the United States uninamously rules racial segregation in public
schools unconstitutional. The same month, King accepts a position as pastor of the Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. On October 31, he is installed as the
church's twentieth pastor.
1955
Having completed his dissertation, King is awarded his Ph.D. from Boston University. On
November 17, Yolanda Denise (Yoki), the King's first child is born. Less than one month
later, on December 5, the Montgomery bus boycott begins after Mrs. Rosa Park, a
seamstress, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. King is
elected president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association and assumes
leadership of the boycott, which will last 381 days.
1956
The King's home is bombed on January 30. Although Mrs. King and Yolanda are at home with
a friend, no one is injured.
In Early February, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa is ordered by the Supreme
Court to admit its first black student, Autherine Lucy. When white students demonstrate,
Lucy is suspended from the University of Alabama for reasons of safety. A federal
district judge orders her reinstated. When she is expelled again, she makes no further
effort to enroll, and the University remains segregated until 1963.
On February 21, King is indicted, along with twenty-four other ministers and more than
one hundred other blacks, for conspiring to prevent the Montgomery bus company from
operation of business.
A United States Discrit Court rules on June 4 that racial segregation on Alabama's city
bus lines is unconstitutional. On November 13, the United States Supreme Court
uninamously upholds the decision.
On December 21, blacks and whites in Montgomery ride for the first time on previously
segregated buses.
1957
More than sixty black ministers, committed to a southern civil rights movement, respond
to King's call for a meeting. In Atlanta on January 9 and 10, they form the organization
that will become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCL).
While King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy are in Atlanta for the meeting, Abernathy's home and
church are bombed in Montgomery. Three other Baptist churches and the home of a white
minister are also bombed in response to the victory of the bus boycott.
On February 14, the SCLC meets formally for the first time in New Orleans. King is
unanimously elected president.
On May 17, three years to the day after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, King
participates with other civil rights leaders in a Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington. He
delivers his first major national address, calling for black voting rights. The next
month, he meets with Vice-President Richard Nixon.
On September 9, Congress passes the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first civil rights
legislation since Reconstruction. The act created the Civil Rights Commission,
established the Civil Right Division of the Justice Department, and empowered the federal
government to seek court injunctions against obstruction of voting rights.
The same month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalizes the Arkansas National Guard to
escort nine black students to Little Rock Central High, a previously all-white high
school. A thousand para-troopers are sent to restore order, and troops remain on campus
for an entire school year. When the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to delay desegregation,
Little Rock schools are closed for the 1958-59 school year. When they reopen, they are
integrated.
Martin Luther III, the King's second child and first son is born in Montgomery on October
23.
1958
On June 23, King, along with Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and A. Philip Randolph of the
AFL-CIO, meets with President Eisenhower.
King is arrested on September 3 in front of the Montgomery Recorder's Court and charged
with loitering. The charge is later changed to failure to obey an officer. The following
day, he is convicted. He decides to go to jail rather than pay the fine. Over King's
objection, the fine is paid by Montgomery Police Commissioner Clyde C. Sellers.
On September 20, King is stabbed in the chest by Mrs. Izola Curry in a Harlem department
store while autographing his newly published book, STRIDE TOWARD FREEDOM: THE MONTGOMERY
STORY.
1959
In early February, Dr. and Mrs. King depart for a monthlong trip to India, where, as the
guests of Prime Minister Nehru, they study Gandhi's techniques of nonviolence.
King submits his resignation as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on November 29. He
will join his father as co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the SCLC
has its headquarters.
1960
The sit-in movement begins on February 1 at a Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro,
North Carolina. In an effort to desegregate lunch counters, movies, hotels, libraries,
and other segregated facilities, it spreads rapidly throughout the country.
On May 6, the 1960 Civil Rights Act is signed. The new legislation authorizes judges to
appoint referees to help blacks register and vote.
King meets with Senator John F. Kennedy, candidate for president of the United States, on
June 24 to discuss racial concerns.
In October, King is arrested in a sit-in at a major Atlanta department store. The charges
are subsequently dropped, and all of the jailed demonstrators except King released. King
is held on charge of a violating probation in a previous traffic arrest case. He is
sentenced to four months of hard labor and transferred to DeKalb County Jail in Decatur,
Georgia, and from there to Reidsville State Prison. Only after Senator Kennedy intervenes
is he released on two thousand dollar bail.
In a 7 to 2 decision in December, the U.S. Supreme holds that discrimination in bus
terminal restaurants operated for the service of interstate passengers is a violation of
the Interstate Commerce Act.
1961
On January 10, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes become the first black students to
enroll at the University of Georgia in Athens. The event is peaceful.
The King's third child , Dexter Scott, is born on January 30.
In March, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), along with SNCC and SCLC, announces a
new campaign - the Freedom Rides. The first Freedom Riders depart from Washington, D.C.,
on May 4. One bus is burned and stoned in Anniston, Alabaman on May 14. The same day,
riders are attacked in Birmingham. When they arrive in Montgomery on May 20, the ensuing
violence leads to martial law. In Jackson Mississippi, the riders are arrested and spend
forty to sixty days in Parchman Penitentiary.
In November, in large measure as a result of the Freedom Rides, the Interstate Commerce
Commission bans segregation on buses, trains and supportive facilities.
On December 15, King arrives in Albany, Georgia to help the local movement in its fight
to desegregate public facilities. The following day King is arrested and charged with
obstructing the sidewalk and parading without a permit.
1962
King is arrested at a prayer vigil at the Albany City Hall on July 27 and jailed on
charges of failure to obey an officer, disorderly conduct, and obstructing the sidewalk.
The Albany Movement is generally unsuccessful in its effort to force desegregation of
public facilities.
Two are killed and many are injured as James Meredith attempts to enroll at Ole Miss -
the University of Mississippi in Oxford - in September. He is enrolled by Supreme Court
order and escorted onto the campus by U.S. marshals federalized by President John
Kennedy.
On October 16, King meets with President Kennedy at the White House.
1963
Bernice Albertine, the fourth child of Dr. and Mrs. King, is born on March 28.
Mass demonstrations begin in Birmingham, Alabama on April 3 to protest segregation of
public facilities. On April 12, King and other ministers are arrested by Police
Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Connor. King is placed placed in solitary confinement. While
imprisoned, King writes his famous Letter From Birmingham Jail explaining the need for
non-violent civil disobedience.
When school children join the protests in Birmingham in early May, Bull Connor orders the
use of fire hoses and police dogs to halt the youthful protestors. The nation is shocked
by the photographs of police brutality.
On May 10, a biracial agreement is announced in Birmingham to desegregate public
accomodations, increase job opportunities for blacks and provide amnesty to those
arrested.
White segregationists react violently to the agreement. On May 11, a bomb explodes at the
home of King's brother, Reverend A.D. King, in Birmingham. A second explosion blasts
King's headquarters in the Gaston Motel. In response, blacks in Birmingham riot. Two
hundred and fifty state troopers are sent to keep peace.
On May 20, the Supreme Court rules Birmingham's segregation ordinances unconstitutional.
When black students Vivian Malone and James Hood attempt to register at the University of
Alabama on June 11, Alabama governor George Wallace carries out a 1962 campaign promise
to stand in the schoolhouse door to prevent integration of Alabama's schools. Wallace
confronts Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, who brought a proclamation from
President Kennedy. At a second confrontation later the same day, Wallace withdraws and
allows the black students to register.
The following day, June 12, in Jackson, Mississippi NAACP state chairman Medgar Evers is
shot to death as he returns home. Byron de la Beckwith of Greenwood, Mississippi is later
charged with the murder, but his two trials both result in mistrials.
The March on Washington, on August 28, becomes the largest and most dramatic civil rights
demonstration in history. More than 250,000 marchers, including 60,000 whites, fill the
mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. King and other civil rights
leaders meet with President Kennedy in the White House. King's I Have A Dream Speech is
the high point of the event.
On September 15, a bomb explodes during Sunday school in Birmingham's sixteenth Avenue
Baptist Church, killing four little girls, aged eleven to fourteen. This is the
twenty-first bombing incident against blacks in Birmingham in eight years. No
perpetrators are found.
President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22. Upon assuming office,
President Johnson urges the speedy passage of Kennedy's civil rights bill as a fitting
tribute to the murdered president.
1964
Time magazine names King Man of the Year in its January 3 issue.
In April, demonstrations begin in St. Augustine, Florida. Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, the
mother of the governor of Massachusetts, is arrested. In May, King is jailed for
demonstrating in St. Augustine, where protests meet violent reaction from white
segregationists.
King witnesses the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon Johnson on
July 2. This is the most far-reaching civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.
Among other provisions, it guarantees blacks the right to vote and access to public
accommodations. It also authorizes the federal government to sue to desegregate public
public facilities and schools.
In July, riots erupt in New York City's Harlem after a fifteen year old black boy is shot
by an off-duty policeman. The initial rioting is followed by uprisings throughout the
summer in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, as well as in Bedford-Stuyvesant;
Rochester, NY, New Jersey; Chicago and Philadelphia.
On August 4, the bodies of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael
Schwerner are found by FBI agents in a shallow grave near Philadelphia, Mississippi. All
three had been shot. Chaney had been brutally beaten. Neshoba county sheriff Lawrence
Rainey and his deputy, Cecil Price, are arrested for conspiring to violate the Civil
Rights Code. Ultimately, Price and six others are convicted. Sheriff Rainey is found not
guilty.
In September, New York City begins busing students to end segregation in public schools.
King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on December 10. He is the twelfth
American, third black and at age thirty-five, the youngest person to win the coveted
prize.
1965
The Selma campaign is initiated on February 2, when King is arrested for demonstrating as
part of the SCLC's voter registration drive. Several days later, a federal district court
bans the literacy test and other technicalities used against black voter applicants, and
on February 9, King meets with President Johnson at the White House to discuss voting
rights.
Jimmie Lee Jackson, a twenty-six year old black man, is fatally shot by state troopers
during a demonstration in Marion, Alabama, on February 18.
Three days later, on February 21, Malcolm X, Black Muslim leader, is assassinated at a
rally of his followers in the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Eventually three blacks are
convicted of his murder.
On March 7, demonstrators in Selma are beaten by state patrolmen as they attempt to cross
the Edmund Pettus Bridge on a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.
That evening, Reverend James Reeb and two other white Unitarian ministers are beaten by
white segregationists in Selma. Reeb dies two days later. The three men who are later
indicted for the murder are all acquitted by a Selma jury.
President Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress on March 15 to appeal for the
passage of the Voting Rights Bill, which he submits two days later. In the televised
address, he uses the slogan of the non-violent movement - We Shall Overcome.
On March 21, King and three thousand protestors begin a five-day march from Selma to the
Alabama state capitol in Montgomery. By agreement, only three hundred are allowed to
cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and continue the entire way to the state capitol. They are
escorted by hundreds of army troops and national guardsmen. In Montgomery, they are met
by twenty-five thousand marchers.
Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights worker from Detroit, is shot to death while driving
returning marchers back to Selma on March 25. The next day, President Johnson denounces
the Ku Klux Klan and announces the arrests of four Klan members in connection with the
murder. On March 30, the House Un-American Activities Committee opens a full
investigation of the Klan and its shocking crimes.
On August 6, President Johnson signs the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Six days of rioting break out in Watts, the black gheto of Los Angeles, on August 11,
leaving thirty-five dead. More than thirty-five hundred people are arrested in one of the
worst riot in the nation's history.
1966
Robert Weaver, named head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, becomes the
first black to serve in a presidential cabinet, and Constance Baker Motley becomes the
first black woman to be named a federal judge.
In February, King and his family move into a tenement apartment in Chicago to initiate
the Chicago Project. The SCLC joins forces with Al Raby's Coordinating Council of
Community Organizations. King meets with Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad in Chicago.
On May 4, more than 80 percent of Alabama's registered blacks vote in the Alabama
Democratic primary. The first major black vote since Reconstruction causes sheriffs James
Clark of Selma and Al Lingo of Birmingham to lose their offices.
James Meredith is shot on June 6 - the first day of his 220 mile March Against Fear from
Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. King and other civil rights leaders decide to
continue the march. In Greenwood, Mississippi, Stokely Carmichael, the newly elected head
of SNCC, and Willie Ricks use the slogan Black Power for the first time in front of
reporters.
Designating July 10 Freedom Sunday, King initiates a drive to make Chicago an open city,
demanding an end to discrimination in housing, schools and employment.
Rioting erupts on Chicago's West Side on July 12. Two black youths are killed. King
begins negotiations with Mayor Richard Daley. Illinois governor Otto Kerner orders four
thousand National Guardsmen to Chicago.
On August 5, King is assaulted with stones as he leads marchers through Chicago's
Southwest Side. SNCC and CORE march on Chicago's Cicero suburb on September 4. King and
SCLC do not participate. Two hundred blacks, protected by National Guardsmen, are
fiercely attacked and forced to retreat.
1967
On February 15, President Johnson proposes the 1967 Civil Rights Act to Congress,
including a strong open-housing provision. The bill does not pass, but similar provisions
are later incorporated in the 1968 Civil Rights Act.
At a news conference in New York on April 16, King warns that at least ten cities could
explode in racial violence this summer because conditions that caused riots last summer
still exist.
On June 2, riots begin in the Roxbury section of Boston. More than 60 people are injured,
and nearly 100 are arrested. Before the summer is over, riots occur in Neward, Detroit,
Milwaukee, and more than 30 other American cities. In Detroit alone, 43 die and 324 are
injured.
In an historic ruling on June 19, a federal judge orders schools in Washington, D.C. to
end de facto segregation by the fall semester.
On July 26, King, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young issue a joint
statement appealing for an end to the riots, which have proved ineffective and damaging
to the civil cause and the entire nation.
The following day, the president appoints Governor Kerner of Illinois and Mayor Lindsay
of New York to head a riot commission to investigate the cause of disorders and recommend
means of preventing or containing them in the future.
On November 7, Carl Strokes is elected mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, the first black elected
mayor of a major U.S. city.
On November 27, King announces the inception of the Poor People's Campaign, focusing on
jobs and freedom for poor people -black and white.
1968
On February 12, sanitation workers go on strike in Memphis, Tennessee.
King leads a demonstration in Memphis on March 28 in support of the striking sanitation
workers. When the march becomes violent, one black is killed and more than fifty people
are injured. King leaves Memphis distressed over the violence. He returns April 3 in the
hopes of leading a peaceful march. He tells a crowd at the Memphis Masonic Temple, I may
not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to
the promised land.
The following day, April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in the balcony of the
Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. He dies at St. Joseph's Hospital of a gunshot wound in the
neck. Rioting in Washington's black section is the most in the capital's history.
The President declares April 7 a national day of mourning for King.
On April 8, Coretta Scott King assumes her husband's place leading a massive silent march
through the streets of Memphis.
Thousands of people attend King's funeral on April 9 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta. Millions more watch on television.
The 1968 Civil Right Act prohibiting racial discrimination in the sale or rental or
housing is passed by Congress on April 11.
Bibliography
Key events in the life of MLK and the civil rights movement
1929
Martin Luther King, Jr. is born to Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. on January
15 in Atlanta, Georgia.
1947
King is licensed to preach and begins assisting his father, who is a pastor of Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta.
1948
King is ordained as a Baptist minister on February 25. In June, he graduates from
Morehouse College in Atlanta and receives a scholarship to study divinity at Crozer
Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.
1949
While studying at Crozer, King attends a lecture by Dr. Mordecai Johnson on the life and
work of Mahatma Gandhi and is inspired to delve deeper into the teachings of the Indian
social philosopher.
1951
King graduates from Crozer with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. He is class valedictorian
and winner of the Pearl Plafker Award for most outstanding student. In September, he
begins doctoral studies in theology at Boston University, where he studies personalism
with Edgar Sheffield Brightman and L. Harold De Wolf.
1953
King marries Coretta Scott at her family's home in Marion, Alabama on June 18.
1954
In May, the Brown v. Board of Education decision paves the way for school desegregation
as the Supreme Court of the United States uninamously rules racial segregation in public
schools unconstitutional. The same month, King accepts a position as pastor of the Dexter
Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. On October 31, he is installed as the
church's twentieth pastor.
1955
Having completed his dissertation, King is awarded his Ph.D. from Boston University. On
November 17, Yolanda Denise (Yoki), the King's first child is born. Less than one month
later, on December 5, the Montgomery bus boycott begins after Mrs. Rosa Park, a
seamstress, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. King is
elected president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association and assumes
leadership of the boycott, which will last 381 days.
1956
The King's home is bombed on January 30. Although Mrs. King and Yolanda are at home with
a friend, no one is injured.
In Early February, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa is ordered by the Supreme
Court to admit its first black student, Autherine Lucy. When white students demonstrate,
Lucy is suspended from the University of Alabama for reasons of safety. A federal
district judge orders her reinstated. When she is expelled again, she makes no further
effort to enroll, and the University remains segregated until 1963.
On February 21, King is indicted, along with twenty-four other ministers and more than
one hundred other blacks, for conspiring to prevent the Montgomery bus company from
operation of business.
A United States Discrit Court rules on June 4 that racial segregation on Alabama's city
bus lines is unconstitutional. On November 13, the United States Supreme Court
uninamously upholds the decision.
On December 21, blacks and whites in Montgomery ride for the first time on previously
segregated buses.
1957
More than sixty black ministers, committed to a southern civil rights movement, respond
to King's call for a meeting. In Atlanta on January 9 and 10, they form the organization
that will become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCL).
While King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy are in Atlanta for the meeting, Abernathy's home and
church are bombed in Montgomery. Three other Baptist churches and the home of a white
minister are also bombed in response to the victory of the bus boycott.
On February 14, the SCLC meets formally for the first time in New Orleans. King is
unanimously elected president.
On May 17, three years to the day after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, King
participates with other civil rights leaders in a Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington. He
delivers his first major national address, calling for black voting rights. The next
month, he meets with Vice-President Richard Nixon.
On September 9, Congress passes the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first civil rights
legislation since Reconstruction. The act created the Civil Rights Commission,
established the Civil Right Division of the Justice Department, and empowered the federal
government to seek court injunctions against obstruction of voting rights.
The same month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalizes the Arkansas National Guard to
escort nine black students to Little Rock Central High, a previously all-white high
school. A thousand para-troopers are sent to restore order, and troops remain on campus
for an entire school year. When the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to delay desegregation,
Little Rock schools are closed for the 1958-59 school year. When they reopen, they are
integrated.
Martin Luther III, the King's second child and first son is born in Montgomery on October
23.
1958
On June 23, King, along with Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and A. Philip Randolph of the
AFL-CIO, meets with President Eisenhower.
King is arrested on September 3 in front of the Montgomery Recorder's Court and charged
with loitering. The charge is later changed to failure to obey an officer. The following
day, he is convicted. He decides to go to jail rather than pay the fine. Over King's
objection, the fine is paid by Montgomery Police Commissioner Clyde C. Sellers.
On September 20, King is stabbed in the chest by Mrs. Izola Curry in a Harlem department
store while autographing his newly published book, STRIDE TOWARD FREEDOM: THE MONTGOMERY
STORY.
1959
In early February, Dr. and Mrs. King depart for a monthlong trip to India, where, as the
guests of Prime Minister Nehru, they study Gandhi's techniques of nonviolence.
King submits his resignation as pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church on November 29. He
will join his father as co-pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, where the SCLC
has its headquarters.
1960
The sit-in movement begins on February 1 at a Woolworth lunch counter in Greensboro,
North Carolina. In an effort to desegregate lunch counters, movies, hotels, libraries,
and other segregated facilities, it spreads rapidly throughout the country.
On May 6, the 1960 Civil Rights Act is signed. The new legislation authorizes judges to
appoint referees to help blacks register and vote.
King meets with Senator John F. Kennedy, candidate for president of the United States, on
June 24 to discuss racial concerns.
In October, King is arrested in a sit-in at a major Atlanta department store. The charges
are subsequently dropped, and all of the jailed demonstrators except King released. King
is held on charge of a violating probation in a previous traffic arrest case. He is
sentenced to four months of hard labor and transferred to DeKalb County Jail in Decatur,
Georgia, and from there to Reidsville State Prison. Only after Senator Kennedy intervenes
is he released on two thousand dollar bail.
In a 7 to 2 decision in December, the U.S. Supreme holds that discrimination in bus
terminal restaurants operated for the service of interstate passengers is a violation of
the Interstate Commerce Act.
1961
On January 10, Charlayne Hunter and Hamilton Holmes become the first black students to
enroll at the University of Georgia in Athens. The event is peaceful.
The King's third child , Dexter Scott, is born on January 30.
In March, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), along with SNCC and SCLC, announces a
new campaign - the Freedom Rides. The first Freedom Riders depart from Washington, D.C.,
on May 4. One bus is burned and stoned in Anniston, Alabaman on May 14. The same day,
riders are attacked in Birmingham. When they arrive in Montgomery on May 20, the ensuing
violence leads to martial law. In Jackson Mississippi, the riders are arrested and spend
forty to sixty days in Parchman Penitentiary.
In November, in large measure as a result of the Freedom Rides, the Interstate Commerce
Commission bans segregation on buses, trains and supportive facilities.
On December 15, King arrives in Albany, Georgia to help the local movement in its fight
to desegregate public facilities. The following day King is arrested and charged with
obstructing the sidewalk and parading without a permit.
1962
King is arrested at a prayer vigil at the Albany City Hall on July 27 and jailed on
charges of failure to obey an officer, disorderly conduct, and obstructing the sidewalk.
The Albany Movement is generally unsuccessful in its effort to force desegregation of
public facilities.
Two are killed and many are injured as James Meredith attempts to enroll at Ole Miss -
the University of Mississippi in Oxford - in September. He is enrolled by Supreme Court
order and escorted onto the campus by U.S. marshals federalized by President John
Kennedy.
On October 16, King meets with President Kennedy at the White House.
1963
Bernice Albertine, the fourth child of Dr. and Mrs. King, is born on March 28.
Mass demonstrations begin in Birmingham, Alabama on April 3 to protest segregation of
public facilities. On April 12, King and other ministers are arrested by Police
Commissioner Eugene (Bull) Connor. King is placed placed in solitary confinement. While
imprisoned, King writes his famous Letter From Birmingham Jail explaining the need for
non-violent civil disobedience.
When school children join the protests in Birmingham in early May, Bull Connor orders the
use of fire hoses and police dogs to halt the youthful protestors. The nation is shocked
by the photographs of police brutality.
On May 10, a biracial agreement is announced in Birmingham to desegregate public
accomodations, increase job opportunities for blacks and provide amnesty to those
arrested.
White segregationists react violently to the agreement. On May 11, a bomb explodes at the
home of King's brother, Reverend A.D. King, in Birmingham. A second explosion blasts
King's headquarters in the Gaston Motel. In response, blacks in Birmingham riot. Two
hundred and fifty state troopers are sent to keep peace.
On May 20, the Supreme Court rules Birmingham's segregation ordinances unconstitutional.
When black students Vivian Malone and James Hood attempt to register at the University of
Alabama on June 11, Alabama governor George Wallace carries out a 1962 campaign promise
to stand in the schoolhouse door to prevent integration of Alabama's schools. Wallace
confronts Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, who brought a proclamation from
President Kennedy. At a second confrontation later the same day, Wallace withdraws and
allows the black students to register.
The following day, June 12, in Jackson, Mississippi NAACP state chairman Medgar Evers is
shot to death as he returns home. Byron de la Beckwith of Greenwood, Mississippi is later
charged with the murder, but his two trials both result in mistrials.
The March on Washington, on August 28, becomes the largest and most dramatic civil rights
demonstration in history. More than 250,000 marchers, including 60,000 whites, fill the
mall from the Lincoln Memorial to the Washington Monument. King and other civil rights
leaders meet with President Kennedy in the White House. King's I Have A Dream Speech is
the high point of the event.
On September 15, a bomb explodes during Sunday school in Birmingham's sixteenth Avenue
Baptist Church, killing four little girls, aged eleven to fourteen. This is the
twenty-first bombing incident against blacks in Birmingham in eight years. No
perpetrators are found.
President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Texas on November 22. Upon assuming office,
President Johnson urges the speedy passage of Kennedy's civil rights bill as a fitting
tribute to the murdered president.
1964
Time magazine names King Man of the Year in its January 3 issue.
In April, demonstrations begin in St. Augustine, Florida. Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, the
mother of the governor of Massachusetts, is arrested. In May, King is jailed for
demonstrating in St. Augustine, where protests meet violent reaction from white
segregationists.
King witnesses the signing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act by President Lyndon Johnson on
July 2. This is the most far-reaching civil rights legislation since Reconstruction.
Among other provisions, it guarantees blacks the right to vote and access to public
accommodations. It also authorizes the federal government to sue to desegregate public
public facilities and schools.
In July, riots erupt in New York City's Harlem after a fifteen year old black boy is shot
by an off-duty policeman. The initial rioting is followed by uprisings throughout the
summer in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, as well as in Bedford-Stuyvesant;
Rochester, NY, New Jersey; Chicago and Philadelphia.
On August 4, the bodies of civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael
Schwerner are found by FBI agents in a shallow grave near Philadelphia, Mississippi. All
three had been shot. Chaney had been brutally beaten. Neshoba county sheriff Lawrence
Rainey and his deputy, Cecil Price, are arrested for conspiring to violate the Civil
Rights Code. Ultimately, Price and six others are convicted. Sheriff Rainey is found not
guilty.
In September, New York City begins busing students to end segregation in public schools.
King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway on December 10. He is the twelfth
American, third black and at age thirty-five, the youngest person to win the coveted
prize.
1965
The Selma campaign is initiated on February 2, when King is arrested for demonstrating as
part of the SCLC's voter registration drive. Several days later, a federal district court
bans the literacy test and other technicalities used against black voter applicants, and
on February 9, King meets with President Johnson at the White House to discuss voting
rights.
Jimmie Lee Jackson, a twenty-six year old black man, is fatally shot by state troopers
during a demonstration in Marion, Alabama, on February 18.
Three days later, on February 21, Malcolm X, Black Muslim leader, is assassinated at a
rally of his followers in the Audubon Ballroom in New York. Eventually three blacks are
convicted of his murder.
On March 7, demonstrators in Selma are beaten by state patrolmen as they attempt to cross
the Edmund Pettus Bridge on a march from Selma to the state capitol in Montgomery.
That evening, Reverend James Reeb and two other white Unitarian ministers are beaten by
white segregationists in Selma. Reeb dies two days later. The three men who are later
indicted for the murder are all acquitted by a Selma jury.
President Johnson addresses a joint session of Congress on March 15 to appeal for the
passage of the Voting Rights Bill, which he submits two days later. In the televised
address, he uses the slogan of the non-violent movement - We Shall Overcome.
On March 21, King and three thousand protestors begin a five-day march from Selma to the
Alabama state capitol in Montgomery. By agreement, only three hundred are allowed to
cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge and continue the entire way to the state capitol. They are
escorted by hundreds of army troops and national guardsmen. In Montgomery, they are met
by twenty-five thousand marchers.
Mrs. Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights worker from Detroit, is shot to death while driving
returning marchers back to Selma on March 25. The next day, President Johnson denounces
the Ku Klux Klan and announces the arrests of four Klan members in connection with the
murder. On March 30, the House Un-American Activities Committee opens a full
investigation of the Klan and its shocking crimes.
On August 6, President Johnson signs the 1965 Voting Rights Act.
Six days of rioting break out in Watts, the black gheto of Los Angeles, on August 11,
leaving thirty-five dead. More than thirty-five hundred people are arrested in one of the
worst riot in the nation's history.
1966
Robert Weaver, named head of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, becomes the
first black to serve in a presidential cabinet, and Constance Baker Motley becomes the
first black woman to be named a federal judge.
In February, King and his family move into a tenement apartment in Chicago to initiate
the Chicago Project. The SCLC joins forces with Al Raby's Coordinating Council of
Community Organizations. King meets with Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad in Chicago.
On May 4, more than 80 percent of Alabama's registered blacks vote in the Alabama
Democratic primary. The first major black vote since Reconstruction causes sheriffs James
Clark of Selma and Al Lingo of Birmingham to lose their offices.
James Meredith is shot on June 6 - the first day of his 220 mile March Against Fear from
Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi. King and other civil rights leaders decide to
continue the march. In Greenwood, Mississippi, Stokely Carmichael, the newly elected head
of SNCC, and Willie Ricks use the slogan Black Power for the first time in front of
reporters.
Designating July 10 Freedom Sunday, King initiates a drive to make Chicago an open city,
demanding an end to discrimination in housing, schools and employment.
Rioting erupts on Chicago's West Side on July 12. Two black youths are killed. King
begins negotiations with Mayor Richard Daley. Illinois governor Otto Kerner orders four
thousand National Guardsmen to Chicago.
On August 5, King is assaulted with stones as he leads marchers through Chicago's
Southwest Side. SNCC and CORE march on Chicago's Cicero suburb on September 4. King and
SCLC do not participate. Two hundred blacks, protected by National Guardsmen, are
fiercely attacked and forced to retreat.
1967
On February 15, President Johnson proposes the 1967 Civil Rights Act to Congress,
including a strong open-housing provision. The bill does not pass, but similar provisions
are later incorporated in the 1968 Civil Rights Act.
At a news conference in New York on April 16, King warns that at least ten cities could
explode in racial violence this summer because conditions that caused riots last summer
still exist.
On June 2, riots begin in the Roxbury section of Boston. More than 60 people are injured,
and nearly 100 are arrested. Before the summer is over, riots occur in Neward, Detroit,
Milwaukee, and more than 30 other American cities. In Detroit alone, 43 die and 324 are
injured.
In an historic ruling on June 19, a federal judge orders schools in Washington, D.C. to
end de facto segregation by the fall semester.
On July 26, King, A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young issue a joint
statement appealing for an end to the riots, which have proved ineffective and damaging
to the civil cause and the entire nation.
The following day, the president appoints Governor Kerner of Illinois and Mayor Lindsay
of New York to head a riot commission to investigate the cause of disorders and recommend
means of preventing or containing them in the future.
On November 7, Carl Strokes is elected mayor of Cleveland, Ohio, the first black elected
mayor of a major U.S. city.
On November 27, King announces the inception of the Poor People's Campaign, focusing on
jobs and freedom for poor people -black and white.
1968
On February 12, sanitation workers go on strike in Memphis, Tennessee.
King leads a demonstration in Memphis on March 28 in support of the striking sanitation
workers. When the march becomes violent, one black is killed and more than fifty people
are injured. King leaves Memphis distressed over the violence. He returns April 3 in the
hopes of leading a peaceful march. He tells a crowd at the Memphis Masonic Temple, I may
not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to
the promised land.
The following day, April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in the balcony of the
Lorraine Hotel in Memphis. He dies at St. Joseph's Hospital of a gunshot wound in the
neck. Rioting in Washington's black section is the most in the capital's history.
The President declares April 7 a national day of mourning for King.
On April 8, Coretta Scott King assumes her husband's place leading a massive silent march
through the streets of Memphis.
Thousands of people attend King's funeral on April 9 at Ebenezer Baptist Church in
Atlanta. Millions more watch on television.
The 1968 Civil Right Act prohibiting racial discrimination in the sale or rental or
housing is passed by Congress on April 11.