History of the King Memorial

January 15, 1929 Martin Luther King, Jr. (originally named Michael King) is born in Atlanta, GA.

February 25, 1948 King is ordained and is appointed associate pastor to his father, the pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

June 8, 1948 King graduates from Morehouse College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Sociology.

May 6-8, 1951 King graduates Crozer Theological Seminary with a Bachelor of Divinity degree.

June 22, 1952 While attending graduate school at Boston University, King is initiated into the Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc.

June 18, 1953 King marries Miss Coretta Scott.

May 17, 1954 The United States Supreme Court rules unanimously that racial segregation in public schools is unconstitutional in Brown vs. the Board of Education, stating that “separate can never be equal.”

October 31, 1954 King is installed as the twentieth pastor at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, AL.

June 5, 1955 King receives his Ph.D. degree in Systematic Theology from Boston University.

December 5, 1955 Dr. King is elected President of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the group formed to coordinate the bus boycott.

December 20, 1955 Buses in Montgomery are integrated after federal injunctions are issued against many city and bus company officials. In the months before integration of buses occurs, the United States Supreme Court upholds an earlier ruling that declares mandatory bus segregation laws unconstitutional.

February 14, 1957 The Southern Christian Leadership Conference ("SCLC") is formed ; Dr. King is named its first president.

February –March 1959 Dr. and Mrs. King spend a month in India as guests of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, studying Mohandas K. Gandhi’s techniques of nonviolent resistance.

March – April, 1962 Dr. King is arrested during a demonstration in Birmingham. On April 16, he writes his famous “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” in which he describes the motivation and defends the need for nonviolent, direct action.

October 1, 1962 James Meredith becomes the first black man to enter the University of Mississippi. He is enrolled by order of the Supreme Court and escorted onto campus by U.S. Marshals.

October 16, 1962

Dr. King meets with President John F. Kennedy at the White House, urging him to support civil rights.

May 3-5, 1963 At a protest in Birmingham, young demonstrators are attacked with dogs and assaulted with water from fire hoses by order of Eugene “Bull” Connor, Director of Public Safety. Media coverage of the event provokes a national outcry against the tactics employed by segregationist leaders.

June 11, 1963 Governor George C. Wallace attempts to stop integration of the University of Alabama by preventing black students and Justice Department officials from entering. Governor Wallace removes himself from blocking the entrance after President Kennedy federalizes the Alabama National Guard.

August 28, 1963 At the historic March on Washington, the first large integrated protest march, Dr. King delivers his famous “I Have a Dream” speech from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the Mall in Washington, DC.

September 15, 1963 The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama is bombed, killing four young girls and injuring many worshippers. Dr. King delivers a eulogy for the girls.

Summer 1964 The Mississippi “Freedom Summer” Project, a voter registration drive, is organized and instituted by Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee (SNCC), with the aid of the SCLC.

July 2, 1964 Dr. King attends the signing of the Public Accommodations Bill, a part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by President Lyndon B. Johnson.

August 25, 1964 Dr. King speaks at the Democratic National Convention, where the Democratic Party refused to seat members of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

December 10, 1964 Dr. King accepts the Nobel Prize for Peace in Oslo, Norway.

February 9, 1965 Dr. King meets with President Johnson and other leaders to discuss voting rights for African-Americans.

March 21-25, 1965 More than three thousand march from Selma to Montgomery under the protection of federal troops. Along the way, their numbers increased to twenty-five thousand. The march ends in Montgomery, where Dr. King gives an address from the steps of the state capitol.

Summer 1965 Riots break out in Watts, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California.

August 6, 1965 President Johnson signs the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Spring 1966 To rally support for the election of black candidates, King makes a “People to People” tour of the South.

May 16, 1966 Dr. King makes an anti-war statement at a Vietnam War protest in Washington, DC.

June 8-24, 1966 Dr. King, many civil rights leaders and supporters continue James Meredith’s “March Against Fear” after Meredith is shot.

Summer 1967 Riots occur in 164 U.S. cities. The largest riots break out in Newark, New Jersey and Detroit, Michigan calling attention to the struggles faced by African Americans in Northern cities.

December 1967-1968 The SCLC forms and organizes the Poor People’s Campaign, a movement intended to alleviate poverty for Americans of all races and ethnicities.

April 4, 1968 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee.

April 7-9, 1968 April 7, 1968, declared a day of mourning, is marked by memorial events and religious services across the country. A silent march is held in Memphis, and on April 9, a funeral service at Ebenezer Baptist Church and a funeral procession take place in Atlanta.

November 2, 1983 The Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday bill, a measure proposed in every legislative session from 1968 by Rep. John Conyers is signed by President Ronald Reagan, declaring King’s birthday a national holiday. However, the first legal holiday nationwide does not occur until January 20, 1986.
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