1944
|
17 April
|
King travels to Dublin, Georgia, to deliver his oration "The
Negro and the Constitution."
|
24 April
|
The United Negro College Fund (UNCF)
is founded.
|
1946
|
January
|
The Women’s Political Council, an organization for black
women and later the initiator of the Montgomery bus boycott
in 1955, is founded by Mary
Fair Burks after Montgomery, Alabama’s League of
Women Voters refuses to accept black members.
|
1 April
|
The U. S. Supreme Court, in the case of King
v. Chapman, declares the "white primary"
to be unconstitutional, thus removing a significant legal
barrier to black voting in the state.
|
3 June
|
In Irene
Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia, the Supreme Court
bans segregation in interstate bus travel.
|
Summer
|
King quits his job as a laborer at the Atlanta Railway Express
Company when a white foreman calls him "nigger."
|
6 August
|
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."
|
1947
|
12 March
|
King is elected chair of the membership committee of the
Atlanta NAACP
Youth Council in a meeting on the Morehouse College campus.
|
9 April
|
The Committee on Racial Equality (CORE)
and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR)
send sixteen black and white "Freedom Riders" through
the South to test compliance with the Supreme Court’s
3 June 1946 decision in Irene
Morgan v. Commonwealth of Virginia. Throughout the
two week "Journey
of Reconciliation," twelve arrests are made.
|
1948
|
25 February
|
King is ordained
and appointed assistant pastor at Ebenezer
Baptist Church in Atlanta.
|
 |
8 June
|
King receives his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from
Morehouse College.
|
 |
14 September
|
King begins his studies at Crozer Theological Seminary in
Chester, Pennsylvania.
|
 |
1950
|
23 February
|
The Atlanta branch of the NAACP
votes to support a lawsuit filed by King, Sr., seeking to
win equal pay for black teachers.
|
5 June
|
The Supreme Court issues three important anti-segregation
decisions. Sweatt
v. Painter orders the University of Texas Law School
to admit black students because a law school founded for blacks
could not be equal to the established and prestigious white
law school. McLaurin
v. Oklahoma abolishes segregation at school in classrooms,
libraries, and cafeterias because "such restrictions
impair and inhibit his ability to study, engage in discussions
and exchange views, with other students, and, in general,
to learn his profession." And Henderson
v. United States prohibits dining-car segregation
on railroads.
|
12 June
|
King, Walter R. McCall, Pearl E. Smith, and Doris Wilson
are refused service by Ernest Nichols at Mary’s Cafe
in Maple Shade, New Jersey. Nichols fires a gun into the air
when they persist in their request for service.
|
22 September
|
Dr.
Ralph E. Bunche, Principal Director of the Department
of Trusteeship and Information from Non-Self-Governing Territories
at the United Nations, is awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize for his mediation of the Palestine conflict.
|
 |
1951
|
6-8 May
|
King graduates from Crozer with a bachelor of divinity degree,
delivering the valedictory address at commencement.
|
13 September
|
King begins his graduate studies in systematic theology at
Boston University.
|
1953
|
February
|
CORE
begins sit-ins in Baltimore, Maryland.
|
19 June
|
Blacks in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, start a bus boycott protesting
discrimination.
|
