Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Highlights of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Life

1929: Martin Luther King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia to his parents, Rev. Martin Luther King Sr. and Alberta Williams King.

1944: King started his undergraduate studies at Morehouse College when he was 15. His maternal grandfather and father along with his brother and sons are all Morehouse Men.

1952: Dr. King was initiated into Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. while a doctoral student at Boston University. Alpha Phi Alpha is the oldest Black fraternity founded at Cornell University in 1906.

1953: King married Coretta Scott on June 18 in Heiberger, Alabama. The couple met in Boston while King was pursuing a doctoral degree at Boston University and Scott was a student at the New England Conservatory of Music. The couple had four children: Yolanda (1955 - 2007), Martin III (1957), Dexter (1961), and Bernice (1963).

1954: King became pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama on September 1st. He was the pastor of the church until November 1959.

1955: In response to Rosa Parks' arrest on December 1, 1955, the Women's Political Council led by JoAnn Robinson called for a one-day boycott of the city buses in Montgomery on December 5th.  The Montgomery Improvement Association was established on the first day of the boycott and Dr. King was elected the president of the organization. He was instrumental and is widely recognized for his work in leading the bus boycott until it ended on December 20, 1956.

1956: On the evening of January 30th, King's home was bombed while he was speaking at First Baptist Church. His wife and oldest daughter were home at the time, but were not injured.

1957: King is elected as the 1st president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference when it held its first meeting in New Orleans on February 14th.

1957: On May 17, a crowd of 25,000 gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. for the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom where King delivered his "Give Us the Ballot" speech. The pilgrimage was held to commemorate the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 as well as to gain the attention of President Eisenhower's administration to condemn those who defied the Supreme Court ruling.

1958: On September 20th while signing copies of Stride Toward Freedom in Harlem, King was stabbed. Stride Toward Freedom is the story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

1960: On October 19th, King and 50 other Black demonstrators were arrested for holding a sit-in to protest segregation at a department store in Atlanta, Georgia. His parole for a traffic violation was revoked by a judge in Decatur and he was sentenced to 4 months in a maximum security prison. Robert F. Kennedy and his brother John F. Kennedy helped King's family get him released.

1961: King and Ralph Abernathy arrived in Albany, Georgia on December 15 in support of the Albany Movement. King delivered a speech at Shiloh Baptist Church. The following day they were arrested along with hundreds of Black protesters for parading without a permit and blocking the sidewalk. Prior to his arrival in Albany, the movement had struggled to get media attention outside of Albany. King's presence and arrest provided the national media attention and led to more involvement from the Black community previously afraid to join due to fear of arrest and brutality.

1963: King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech before a crowd of several hundred thousand people on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28th. After the march, King and several other civil rights leaders met with President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson to urge Kennedy's administration to create civil rights laws.

1964: On December 10th, King received the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway in recognition of his commitment to nonviolence in the face of racial injustice.

1966: From June 7 - 26, King, Stokely Carmichael, and other civil rights leaders led the March Against Fear. Their march resumed the former one-man pilgrimage from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi led by James H. Meredith after Meredith was shot. When the group arrived in Jackson, there was a crowd of approximately 15,000 gathered to listen to King, Carmichael, and Meredith speak. This march and rally was where the phrase "Black Power" was first used.

1967: On April 4th, King took a stance in opposition to the Vietnam War and urged the government to consider different methods to end the war. His stance was met with disapproval by many of his supporters.

1968: On April 4th, King was assassinated while standing on his balcony at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.