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Martin Luther King, Jr., is born in Atlanta to teacher Alberta King and Baptist minister Michael Luther King.
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Martin Luther King Jr. graduated for Booker T. Washing High Scool. He was 15 years old.
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King begins his freshman year at Morehouse College in Atlanta.
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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."
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King is ordained and appointed assistant pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
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After receiving his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Morehouse College, he begins his studies at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.
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King graduates from Crozer with a bachelor of divinity degree, and begins his graduate studies in systematic theology at Boston University.
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King and Coretta Scott are married at the Scott home near Marion, Alabama.
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King begins his pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
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King is awarded his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University.
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Yolanda Denise King, the Kings’ first child, is born.
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At a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, the Montgomery Improvement Association(MIA) is formed. King becomes its president.
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At 9:15 p.m., while King speaks at a mass meeting, his home is bombed. His wife and daughter are not injured. Later King addresses an angry crowd that gathers outside the house, pleading for nonviolence.
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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).
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King appears on the cover of Time magazine.
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At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King delivers his first national address, "Give Us The Ballot," at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
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Coretta King gives birth to their second child, Martin, III.
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During a book signing at Blumstein’s Department Store in Harlem, New York, King is stabbed by Izola Ware Curry. He is rushed to Harlem Hospital where a team of doctors successfully remove a seven-inch letter opener from his chest.
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King embarks on a month-long visit to India where he meets with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and many of Gandhi’s followers.
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King moves from Montgomery to Atlanta to devote more time to SCLC and the freedom struggle. He becomes assistant pastor to his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
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King meets privately in New York with Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.
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King is arrested during a sit-in demonstration at Rich’s department store in Atlanta. He is sentenced to four months hard labor for violating a suspended sentence he received for a 1956 traffic violation. He is released on $2000 bond on 27 October.
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Dexter Scott, King’s third child, is born.
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King meets with President John F. Kennedy and urges him to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to eliminate racial segregation.
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During the closing session of the SCLC conference in Birmingham, Alabama, a member of the American Nazi Party assaults King, striking him twice in the face.
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Bernice Albertine, King’s fourth child, is born.
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Responding to eight Jewish and Christian clergymen’s advice that African Americans wait patiently for justice, King pens his "Letter from Birmingham Jail." King and Abernathy were arrested on 12 April and released on 19 April.
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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.
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King delivers the eulogy at the funerals of Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Dianne Wesley, three of the four children that were killed during the 15 September bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Carole Robertson, the fourth victim, was buried in a separate ceremony.
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U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorizes the FBI to wiretap King’s home phone.
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King is named "Man of the Year" by Time Magazine.
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President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with King, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and James Farmer and seeks support for his War on Poverty initiative.
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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.
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King's book "Why We Can’t Wait" is published.
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King is arrested and jailed for demanding service at a white-only restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida.
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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.
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King publicly opposes the Vietnam War at a mass rally at the Ninth Annual Convention of SCLC in Birmingham.
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After King criticizes the FBI’s failure to protect civil rights workers, the agency’s director J. Edgar Hoover denounces King as "the most notorious liar in the country." A week later he states that SCLC is "spearheaded by Communists and moral degenerates."
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King receives the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. He declares that "every penny" of the $54,000 award will be used in the ongoing civil rights struggle.
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King and his wife move into an apartment at 1550 South Hamlin Avenue in Chicago to draw attention to the city's poor housing conditions.
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In Chicago, King meets Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.
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King, Floyd McKissick of CORE, and Stokely Carmichael of SNCC resume James Meredith’s "March Against Fear" from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi, after Meredith was shot and wounded near Memphis.
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King delivers "Beyond Vietnam" to a gathering of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City. He demands that the U.S. take new initiatives to end the war.
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King’s book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? is published.
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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.
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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.
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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."
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King is shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.
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King is buried in Atlanta.
