1954 |
1 September
|
King begins his pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church
in Montgomery, Alabama.
|
 |
1955 |
5 June
|
King is awarded his doctorate in systematic theology from
Boston University.
|
17 November
|
Yolanda Denise King, the Kings’ first child, is born.
|
 |
1 December
|
Rosa
Parks is arrested for refusing to vacate her seat and
move to the rear of a city bus in Montgomery to make way for
a white passenger. Jo Ann
Robinson and other Women’s Political Council members
mimeograph thousands of leaflets calling for a one-day boycott
of the city’s buses on Monday, 5 December.
|
 |
5 December
|
At a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, the Montgomery
Improvement Association (MIA) is formed. King becomes its
president.
|
1956 |
27 January
|
According to King’s later account in Stride
Toward Freedom, he receives a threatening phone call
late in the evening, prompting a spiritual
revelation that fills him with strength to carry on in
spite of persecution.
|
30 January
|
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.
|
13 November
|
The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the lower court opinion in
Browder v. Gayle
declaring Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws unconstitutional.
|
21 December
|
Montgomery City Lines resumes full service on all routes.
King is among the first passengers to ride the buses in an
integrated fashion.
|
1957 |
10-11 January
|
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).
|
18 February
|
King appears on the cover of Time magazine.
|
6 March
|
King attends the
independence celebrations of the new nation of Ghana in
West Africa and meets with Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.
|
 |
17 May
|
At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King delivers
his first national address, "Give
Us The Ballot," at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
|
13 June
|
King and Ralph D. Abernathy meet with Vice President Richard
M. Nixon and issue a statement
on their meeting.
|
 |
23 October
|
Coretta Scott King gives
birth to their second child, Martin, III.
|
 |
1958 |
23 June
|
King and other civil rights leaders meet with President Dwight
D. Eisenhower in Washington.
|
 |
17 September
|
King’s first book Stride
Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story is published.
|
 |
20 September
|
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.
|
