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Dr. King is Born
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, GA., he was the second of three children of the Rev. Michael (later Martin) and Alberta Williams King. -
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Civil Rights Movement
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Dr. King Becomes Pastor
In 1954, King accepted his first pastorate in the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Him and his wife, Coretta Scott King, who he had met and married while at Boston University. -
Rosa Parks Defies City Segregation
Often called "the mother of the civil rights movement," Rosa Louise McCauley Parks, born in Tuskegee, Alabama, on Feb. 4, 1913, started the 381-day Montgomery bus boycott that led to a 1956 Supreme Court order outlawing discriminatory practices on Montgomery buses. In December 1955, returning home from her assistant tailor job in Montgomery, Parks refused a bus driver's order to surrender her seat to a white man. She was jailed and fined $14. -
Montgomery Bus Boycott
Although it was started by the arrest of Rosa Parks, the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56 was actually a collective response to decades of intimidation, harassment and discrimination of Alabama's African American population. -
Bus Seregation Declared Illigal
The boycott succeeded in desegregating public facilities in the South and also in getting civil rights legislation from Congress. -
School Integration
In September 1957 the state received national attention when Governor Orval E. Faubus tried to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School. President Dwight D. Eisenhower quickly intervened by sending federal troops to Little Rock, several black students were enrolled at Central High School. -
Student Sit-Ins
Black students would go into a five or ten cent store or diner and sit there and drink coffee and would never be offered service. They would sit there even when they were refused service. -
"Freedom Riders"
The Congress of Racial Equality organizes the "Freedom Riders." -
Youth Marches
Youth Marches occur at City Hall. -
King's "I Have a Dream" Speech
King organized the massive march to Washington where, in his "I Have a Dream" speech, he pointed out the conscience of the nation before the judgment seat of morality. -
Civil Rights Act
Congress enacted new legislation in an attempt to overcome local and state obstruction to the exercise of citizenship rights by blacks. -
Nobel Peace Prize
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the youngest man to ever recieve a nobel peace prize. -
"Open City"
King announces the "Open City" campaign to fight problems in the North. -
Meredith Shot
James Meredith is shot shortly after he begins a voting rights march. -
Separate and Unequal
A report is released that the Nation is divided into groups of Blacks and whites -
Dr. King is Assassinated
On Apr. 4, 1968, King was killed by an assassin's bullet. The violent death of this man of peace brought an immediate reaction of rioting in black ghettos around the country. -
City Hall March
Coretta King leads a march of 42,000 to city hall to mourn her husbands death. -
Dr. King is Buried
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. is buried at south View Cemetery. A crowd of 50,000 to 100,000 is present as they mourn the death of a towering symbol of moral and social progress for Black Americans.
