Martin Luther King Jr.
1st President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
Timeline
- 1929: Born at noon on January 15, 1929.
- 1944: Graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and was admitted to Morehouse College at age 15.
- 1948: Graduates from Morehouse College and enters Crozer Theological Seminary.
- 1951: Enters Boston University for graduate studies.
- 1953: Marries Coretta Scott and settles in Montgomery, Alabama.
- 1955: Received Doctorate of Philosophy in Systematic Theology from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts on June 5, 1955.
- 1956: On November 13, the Supreme Court rules that bus segregation is illegal, ensuring victory for the boycott.
- 1957: King forms the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation and achieve civil rights. On May 17, Dr. King speaks to a crowd of 15,000 in Washington, D.C.
- 1958: The U.S. Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act since reconstruction.
- 1959: Visited India to study Mohandas Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence.
- 1960: Becomes co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia.
- 1961: In November, the Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in interstate travel due to work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Freedom Riders.
- 1962: During the unsuccessful Albany, Georgia movement, King is arrested on July 27 and jailed.
- 1963: On Good Friday, April 12, King is arrested with Ralph Abernathy by Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor for demonstrating without a permit.
- 1964: On January 3, King appears on the cover of Time magazine as its Man of the Year.
- 1965: On February 2, King is arrested in Selma, Alabama during a voting rights demonstration.
- 1966: On January 22, King moves into a Chicago slum tenement to attract attention to the living condition of the poor.
- 1967: The Supreme Court upholds a conviction of MLK by a Birmingham court for demonstrating without a permit. King spends four days in a Birmingham jail.
- 1968: At sunset on April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.
- 1986: On November 2, a national holiday is proclaimed in King’s honor.