Martin Luther King Jr. Events

1927 Apr 27 Coretta Scott Is Born
Coretta Scott was born April 27, 1927, in Heiberger, near Marion, Alabama. She spent her childhood on her parents' farm in Heiberger. The farm had been in the family since the Civil War, ...
1929 Jan 15 Reverand Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Is Born
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., twentieth-century America's most compelling and effective civil rights leader, was born on January 15, 1929, in Atlanta, Georgia. After entering Morehou...
1952 Coretta Scott Meets Martin Luther King Jr.
"I always believed that there was a purpose for my life, and that I had to seek that purpose, and that if I discovered that purpose, then I believed that I would be successful in what I wa..." —Coretta Scott King
1953 Jun 18 Coretta Scott Marries Martin Luther King Jr.
When he proposed, she deliberated for six months before saying yes, and they were married in the garden of her parents' house on June 18, 1953. The 350 guests, elegant big-city folks from...
1955 Dec 1
to 1956 Dec 20
 Montgomery Bus Boycott
The Montgomery Bus Boycott was a political and social protest campaign started in 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, intended to oppose the city's policy of racial segregation on its publi...
1959 Feb 9 Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King Travel To India
“It was wonderful to be in Gandhi’s land,” wrote the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., a few months after returning from a monthlong visit to India in 1959. “I left India more convinced th...
1961 Dec Martin Luther King, Jr. Becomes Involved in the Albany Movement
The Albany Movement was a desegregation coalition formed in Albany, Georgia, on November 17, 1961. Local activists, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), and the National ...
1963 May 3
to 1963 May 8
 Violence Erupts as Civil Rights Protesters Clash with Police in Birmingham, AL
The Birmingham campaign was a strategic movement organized by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to bring attention to the unequal treatment black Americans endured in Bi...
1963 Aug 28 Martin Luther King, Jr. Delivers "I Have a Dream" Speech
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom was a large political rally that took place in Washington, D.C. on August 28, 1963. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his historic "I Have a D...
1963 Sep 15 The 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama is Bombed
[A]bout 10:22 on that morning 34 years ago today, worshipers heard a clicking noise, like the very loud click of a clock. ''What was that?'' Sunday school teacher William Sturdivant had t...
1964 Mar 26 Malcolm X meets with Martin Luther King Jr.
After leaving the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X founded Muslim Mosque, Inc., a religious organization, and the Organization of Afro-American Unity, a secular group that advocated black natio...
1964 Oct 14 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Awarded Nobel Peace Prize
In 1964, King became the youngest person to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his work to end racial segregation and racial discrimination through civil disobedience and other non-violent...
1965 Mar 7 "Bloody Sunday", First March from Selma to Montgomery
On March 7, demonstrators start a 54-mile march in response to an activist's murder. They are protesting his death and the unfair state laws and local violence that keep African America...
1965 Mar 9 Martin Luther King, Jr. Leads Second March from Selma to Montgomery
Immediately after "Bloody Sunday", Martin Luther King Jr. began organizing a second march to be held on Tuesday, March 9, 1965, calling for people across the country to join him. Hundreds...
1965 Mar 21 Martin Luther King, Jr. Leads Third March from Selma, Successfully Reaching Montgomery
The five-day, four-night march began on March 21, and covered a 54-mile (87 km) route along U.S. Route 80 (in Alabama known as the "Jefferson Davis Highway"). Protected by 2,000 soldiers ...
1965 Aug 6 Lyndon B. Johnson Signs National Voting Rights Act of 1965 into Law
The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. § 1973–1973aa-6) outlawed discriminatory voting practices that had been responsible for the widespread disenfranchisement of African Amer...
1968 Apr 4
6:01PM
 Martin Luther King, Jr. Assassinated at Lorraine Motel
In March 1968, Reverend King went to Memphis, Tennessee in support of striking African American sanitation workers. The workers had staged a walkout on February 11, 1967, to protest unequ...
1968 Apr 4
9:00PM
 Robert F. Kennedy Delivers Speech on the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
A speech on the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. was given by New York Senator Robert F. Kennedy on April 4, 1968. Kennedy was campaigning for the 1968 Democratic presidential nom...
1968 Apr 8 Coretta Scott King Leads Silent Memorial March For Martin Luther King Jr.
An assassin finally snuffed out Dr. King's life on April 4, 1968, while he led a strike of 1,300 black sanitation workers - the working poor of their day - to demand the right to have a u...
1969 Coretta Scott King Publishes 'My Life With Martin Luther King Jr.
In the years immediately following her husband's death, King was involved in many things. For example, in June of 1969 Coretta Scott King published her first biography, My Life with Marti...
1983 Nov 2 'Martin Luther King Jr. Day' Becomes a National Holiday
Coretta King’s most enduring contribution to American culture has been as chair of the Martin L. King Jr. Federal Holiday Commission. In the late 1970s the King Center collected six milli...
1998 Apr 23 James Earl Ray Dies In Prison
In Atlanta, Dr. King's widow, Coretta Scott King, issued a statement that said: ''This is a tragedy, not only for Mr. Ray and his family but also for the entire nation. America will ne...
1999 Jan 12 "Our Friend, Martin" Is Released
Our Friend, Martin is a 1999 animated children's educational film about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the American civil rights movement. Two friends travel through time, meeting Dr. King a...
2007 Aug 30 Uncovered Documents Show FBI Was Spying On Coretta Scott King
The American Civil Liberties Union today issued a call to change FBI spying guidelines after documents were released revealing that the FBI spied on Coretta Scott King, after the death of...