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Significant events in the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
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Michael Luther King Jr., later renamed Martin, is born to schoolteacher Alberta King and Baptist minister Michael Luther King in Atlanta.
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King is appointed to serve as the assistant pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
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King graduates from Morehouse College in Atlanta, Ga., with a B.A. in sociology.
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Graduates with a bachelor of divinty (B.D.) from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa.
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King marries Coretta Scott at her parent’s home in Marion, Ala. The two met while studying in Boston. They will have four children: Yolanda Denise (b.1955), Martin Luther King III (b.1957), Dexter (b.1961), Bernice Albertine (b.1963).
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King is appointed pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala.
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After coursework at Boston University, King finishes his Ph.D. in systematic theology.
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King becomes the president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association and spearheads a bus boycott in Montgomery, Ala., after an African-American woman, Rosa Parks, is arrested Dec. 1 for refusing to give up her seat to a white person.
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King is arrested for driving 30 mph in a 25 mph zone.
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King's house is bombed.
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After more than a year of boycotting the buses and a legal fight, the Montgomery buses are desegregated.
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Black ministers form what will become known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. King is named first president one month later.
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At the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, King delivers his first national address entitled, "Give Us The Ballot."
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In what is considered a typical year of demonstrations, King travels 780,000 miles and makes 208 speeches.
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King's first book, "Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story" is published. It consists of his recollections of the Montgomery bus boycott. On Sept. 20, while King is promoting the book in a Harlem book store, an African American woman stabs him.
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King visits India for a month. He had a lifelong admiration for Mohandas K. Gandhi, and credited Gandhi's passive resistance techniques for his civil-rights successes.
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King and his family move to Atlanta where he serves as assistant pastor to his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
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King meets with President John F. Kennedy to urge him to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to eliminate racial segregation.
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King leads protests in Birmingham for desegregated department store facilities, and fair hiring. Police arrest King and other ministers demonstrating in Birmingham, Ala., then turn fire hoses and police dogs on the marchers.
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Arrested after demonstrating in defiance of a court order and in response to Jewish and Christian clergymen's advice that African Americans wait patiently for justice, King writes "Letter From Birmingham Jail." This eloquent letter, later widely circulated, became a classic of the civil rights movement. Arrested on April 12, King and fellow civil rights activist Ralph Abernathy are released April 19.
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The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom draws 250,000 civil rights supporters. At the Lincoln Memorial, King delivers the famous "I have a dream" speech.
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King's book "Why We Can't Wait" published.
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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 successfully registers to vote at the Hotel Albert in Selma, Ala. and is assaulted by James George Robinson of Birmingham.
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King continues to protest voter registration discrimination and is arrested and jailed. He meets with President Lyndon B. Johnson Feb. 9 and other American leaders about voting rights for African Americans.
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King, his wife Corretta Scott King and 3,200 people march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., after a U.S. District judge upholds the right of demonstrators to conduct and orderly march.
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King delivers his "The American Dream" sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.
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President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act, which King sought, authorized federal examiners to register qualified voters and suspended devices such as literacy tests that aimed to prevent African Americans from voting.
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King leads striking sanitation workers in a march in Memphis, Tennessee. The march erupts in violence.
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Back in Memphis to lead another march with sanitation workers, at a rally at Mason Temple, King delivers his last speech, "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop."
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King is assassinated while standing on a balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tenn., by James Earl Ray. News of King's death is the catalyst for violence in more than 100 cities.
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King is buried in Atlanta.
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President Ronald Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honor King.
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The King holiday is observed for the first time.
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Credits:
CBS/The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research And Education Institute/AP
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