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On this day in 1929, Michael King, later known as Martin Luther King Jr. is born in his grandparents house in Atlanta, Georgia. -
King begins his freshman year at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Georgia. -
The Atlanta Constitution publishes King's letter to the editor stating that black people "are entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens." -
King is ordained and becomes the assistant pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. -
King receives his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Morehouse College. -
King begins graduate studies in systematic theology at Boston University. -
King and Coretta Scott are married at the Scott home near Marion, Alabama. -
After Rosa Parks arrest four days prior, a mass meeting is held at Holt Street Baptist Church where the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) is formed. King becomes the President. -
The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the lower court opinion in Browder v. Gayle declaring Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws unconstitutional. -
Southern black ministers meet in Atlanta to share strategies in the fight against segregation. King is named chairman of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration (later known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC). -
At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King delivers his first national address, "Give Us The Ballot," at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom. -
King’s first book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story is published. -
After the initial group of Freedom Riders seeking to integrate bus terminals are assaulted in Alabama, King addresses a mass rally at a mob-besieged Montgomery church. -
The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom attracts more than two hundred thousand demonstrators to the Lincoln Memorial. Organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, the march is supported by all major civil rights organizations as well as by many labor and religious groups. King delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech. After the march, King and other civil rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House. -
King and SCLC staff launch a People-to-People tour of Mississippi to assist the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign. -
In an event that will become known as "Bloody Sunday," voting rights marchers are beaten at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as they attempt to march to Montgomery. -
King, James Forman, and John Lewis lead civil rights marchers from Selma to Montgomery after a U.S. District judge upholds the right of demonstrators to conduct an orderly march. -
King publicly reveals his plans to organize a mass civil disobedience campaign, the Poor People's Campaign, in Washington, D.C., to force the government to end poverty. -
King leads a march of six thousand protesters in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. The march descends into violence and looting, and King is rushed from the scene. -
King returns to Memphis, determined to lead a peaceful march. During an evening rally at Mason Temple in Memphis, King delivers his final speech, "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop." -
King is shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.