1929

On January 15th, Michael Luther King, Jr. was born to Baptist minister Michael Luther King and Alberta King in Atlanta, Georgia. He was later renamed Martin.

1944

Martin Luther King, Jr. began his freshman year at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia.

1948

Martin Luther King, Jr. was ordained as a minister in the Baptist church.

At the age of nineteen, he graduated from Morehouse College in Atlanta with a B.A. in Sociology and was appointed associate pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

Rev. King entered Crozer Seminary, where he began studying Mahatma Gandhi's teachings on non-violence.

1951

Rev. King graduated with a Bachelor of Divinity degree from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.

1953

While studying for a doctorate in theology at Boston University, Rev. King met Coretta Scott, a music student at Boston's New England Conservatory of Music. They married on June 18th in Marion, Alabama.

1954

Rev. King was appointed pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

The Supreme Court of the United States decided unanimously that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education.

1955

Rev. King was awarded a Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Boston University.

Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a public bus to a white man and was arrested. This sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott, led by Dr. King.

1956

The King home was bombed. No one was injured.

A little more than a year after it began, the Montgomery Bus Boycott ended. Montgomery buses were integrated.

1957

At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., Dr. King delivered his first national address, "Give Us The Ballot," at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.

The first Civil Rights Act since Reconstruction was passed by Congress. It established the Civil Rights Section of the Justice Department and gave federal prosecuters the power to obtain court injuctions against interference with the right to vote.

1958

Dr. King and other civil rights leaders met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington, D.C.

1959

Dr. and Mrs. King were guests of Prime Minister Nehru of India for a month, studying Mahatma Gandhi's techniques of non-violence.

1960

Dr. King met privately in New York with Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

Dr. King and about 280 college students staged a sit-in at a lunch counter in Atlanta, Georgia. After their arrest, they refused to post bail, determined to serve whatever sentence was handed to them. After six days, the owners of the department store dropped all charges, and Dr. King and the students were released without bail.

1961

After assisting the Albany Movement in desegregating public facilities in Albany, Georgia, Dr. King was arrested at a local demonstration. He was charged with obstructing the sidewalk and parading without a permit.

After the initial group of Freedom Riders seeking to integrate bus terminals in the South was assaulted in Alabama, King addressed a mass rally at a mob-besieged Montgomery church.

1962

Dr. King was tried and convicted for leading the December march in Albany, Georgia.

Dr. King met with President John F. Kennedy at the White House.

1963

Dr. King wrote "Letter From Birmingham Jail" while imprisoned for demonstrating in Birmingham, Alabama. The letter was a response to local white ministers calling him a troublemaker in The Birmingham News.

Two hundred thousand people gathered in Washington, D.C. for the first large-scale integrated civil rights march. Dr. King delivered his famous "I Have A Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.

Dr. King and other civil rights leaders met with President Kennedy at the White House.

Strength to Love, King’s book of sermons, was published.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was honored as Time magazine's Man of the Year.

1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson met with Dr. King, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and James Farmer to seek support for his War on Poverty initiative.

Dr. King met Malcolm X, one of the most influential African-American leaders of the 1960s, in Washington, D.C. for the first and only time.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference workers and Dr. King participated in a demonstration for the integration of public accommodations in St. Augustine, Florida. He was jailed.

Dr. King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy visited West Berlin at the invitation of West Berlin Mayor Willy Brandt.

Dr. King had an audience with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican.

Dr. King received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway; declared that "every penny" of the $273,000 award will be used in the ongoing civil rights struggle.

1965

On January 18th, Dr. King successfully registered to vote at the Hotel Albert in Selma, Alabama, where he was physically assaulted.

On March 21st, Dr. King led marchers across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. President Lyndon Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard to protect them. By the time they reached Montgomery, there were 25,000 marchers.

On August 6, President Johnson signed the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It codified the 15th Amendment's guarantee that "no person shall be denied the right to vote on account of race or color." One of its measures ended the use of literacy tests for voting in six southern states (Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Virginia) and in many counties of North Carolina.

1966

Dr. King, Floyd McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) continued the "March Against Fear" from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi, after James Meredith was shot and wounded near Memphis.

The U. S. Supreme Court ruled all poll taxes unconstitutional.

1967

Dr. King gave a speech at the Chicago Coliseum attacking the war in Vietnam.

Dr. King’s book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? was published.

1968

During an evening rally at Mason Temple in Memphis, King delivered his final speech, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.”

On April 4th, Dr. King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

1970

California became the first state to pass legislation making Dr. King's Birthday a school holiday.

1986

President Reagan signed a proclamation declaring the third Monday in January of each year a public holiday in honor of the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.