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King is awarded his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University.
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At a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, the Montgomery Improvement Association is formed. King becomes its president.
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John F. Kennedy is inaugurated as the thirty-fifth President of the United States.
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Kennedy meets with Soviet premier Nikita S. Khrushchev in Vienna. The conference fails to resolve a conflict over the status of Berlin.
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Americans discovered the missile sites in Cuba. These sites brought every town in the US within range of Soviet nuclear missiles.
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King meets with President John F. Kennedy and urges him to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to eliminate racial segregation.
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Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara presents JFK with three options: diplomacy with Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev, a naval quarantine of Cuba, and an air attack to destroy the missile sites, which might kill thousands of Soviet personnel and trigger a Soviet counterattack on a target such as Berlin.
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Castro sends a letter to Khrushchev, urging him to launch a nuclear first strike against the United States, which the Soviet leader disregards.
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The Southern Christian Leadership Conference begins a movement in (with notable participant Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.) to highlight the efforts being made by black Americans in Birmingham, Alabama, to integrate public spaces in the city.
