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Short Biography of 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
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1929 |
This 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)
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1930 |
His brother named Alfred
Daniel was born (July 30, 1930 – July 1, 1969). |
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1932 |
January: King begins nursery
school |
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1935 - 1942 |
1935: 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
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1939 |
WW2 begins |
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1942
- 1943 |
Martin 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
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1944 |
September: Martin Luther King
attends Morehouse College in Atlanta. |
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1945 |
WW2 ends |
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1946 |
June 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
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1947 |
Dr. 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."
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1948 |
February 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.
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1951 |
May: 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
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1953 |
June 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
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1954 |
May 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. |
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1955 |
May 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
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1956 |
January 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
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1957 |
January – 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
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1958 |
June 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
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1959 |
February 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
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1960 |
February: 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.
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1961 |
January 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
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1962 |
September 30: Riots break out
on the campus at the University of Mississippi |
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1963 |
March 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
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1964 |
January 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.
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1965 |
February 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.
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1966 |
January 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
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1967 |
January: 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
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1968 |
March 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
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1977 |
He was posthumously awarded
the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Jimmy
Carter |
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1986 |
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
was established as a national holiday in the United
States |
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1998 |
April 23: James Earl Ray the
convicted killer of D. King died in prison of liver
failure |
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2004 |
Dr.Martin Luther King, Jr was
posthumously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal |
