1955

2 Mar

Claudette Colvin, 15, is arrested for allegedly violating Montgomery's ordinance requiring segregation on the city's buses. King, Jo Ann Robinson of the Women's Political Council, Rosa Parks of the Montgomery NAACP, and others later meet with city and bus company officials.

 

14 July

In Flemming v. South Carolina Electric and Gas Company the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals rules that the recent Brown v. Board of Education decision applies to segregation on municipal buses.

 

15 Oct

Montgomery resident Mary Louise Smith is arrested and fined for refusing to yield her seat to a white passenger.

 

7 Nov

The Interstate Commerce Commission rules that segregation on interstate trains and buses and in waiting rooms used by interstate travelers is in violation of the Interstate Commerce Act.

 

1 Dec

Rosa Parks refuses to vacate her seat and move to the rear of a city bus in Montgomery to make way for a white passenger. The driver notifies the police, who arrest Parks for violating city and state ordinances. Parks is released on $100 bond. 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, the day Rosa Parks is to be tried.

 

2 Dec

Jo Ann Robinson, her students, and the Women's Political Council distribute boycott leaflets. E. D. Nixon calls Martin Luther King, Jr., to talk about the arrest of Parks and to arrange for a meeting of black leaders at Dexter that evening. Those present agree to call a city-wide meeting on 5 December at Holt Street Baptist Church. King and Ralph Abernathy remain at Dexter after the meeting to mimeograph a redrafted leaflet publicizing the bus boycott and the upcoming mass meeting.

 

3 Dec

On Saturday evening, King and others visit night clubs in the city to spread news of the boycott and the mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church. Television and radio also report the upcoming meeting and boycott.

 

4 Dec

Joe Azbell reports the plans for a boycott in a front page article in the Montgomery Advertiser. The city's black ministers announce the one-day boycott from their pulpits on Sunday morning. King preaches at Dexter on "Why Does God Hide Himself?"

 

5 Dec

In the morning, King watches empty buses pass by his home, indicating a successful first day of the boycott. Rosa Parks pleads not guilty but is convicted and fined fourteen dollars. Fred D. Gray, her lawyer, appeals the conviction. In the afternoon, eighteen black leaders meet to plan the evening mass meeting. The group organizes itself as the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), agrees to an agenda for the mass meeting, and elects its officers, including King as president. Later, several thousand people gather at Holt Street Baptist Church. King gives the main address. Abernathy presents resolutions, which are adopted resoundingly, recommending that the boycott continue indefinitely. King leaves the mass meeting early to speak at a YMCA "Father and Son" banquet.

 

6 Dec

King meets with reporters to discuss the MIA demands.

 

7 Dec

The MIA executive board assembles for the first time to organize its committees. The Alabama Council on Human Relations (ACHR) offers to bring together the opposing factions, including the bus company, city officials and MIA leaders.

 

8 Dec

King and other members of the MIA executive board meet for four hours with city officials, representatives of the Montgomery City Lines, and members of the ACHR. The MIA proposals are not approved. King calls Rev. T. J. Jemison of Baton Rouge, leader of a brief bus boycott in 1953, to ask for advice on transportation alternatives. That night the MIA's second mass meeting, held at St. John AME Church approves the establishment of a carpool system as a temporary alternative to the buses. King then sent a memo to National City Lines, Inc. , parent company to the Montgomery City Lines, where he again attempted to remedy the situation in Montgomery.

 

9 Dec

Montgomery City Lines announces that it will cut bus service to "most Negro districts," effective at 6 p.m. on 10 December. A conference of MIA leaders and bus officials fails to reach a compromise as bus company officials insist that state and city laws require them to enforce segregation.

 

10 Dec

King and the MIA release a "Statement of Negroes on Bus Situation" suggesting that the bus company could accept MIA's seating proposal and remain within the law.

 

11 Dec

Ralph W. Riley, president of the American Baptist Theological Seminary in Nashville, is the guest speaker at Dexter's seventy-eighth anniversary services.

 

12 Dec

At the third MIA mass meeting, held at Bethel Baptist Church, leaders announce that an organized carpool will begin the following day. A letter to the editor of the Montgomery Advertiser from white city librarian Juliette Morgan compares the bus boycott to Gandhi's famous "salt march."

 

13 Dec

King, Fred D. Gray, and Rosa Parks meet with W. C. Patton, state field secretary for the NAACP. After a special meeting of the Montgomery NAACP executive committee, Parks authorizes the NAACP to undertake the legal aspects of her case. In a statement to the press, King suggests that the boycott could last for a year.

 

15 Dec

Amid reports that Montgomery black taxi cab drivers are charging only ten cents per passenger, city officials remind cab operators that the minimum fare is 45 cents. Montgomery Police Chief G. J. Ruppenthal orders strict enforcement of city laws prohibiting more than three people in the front seat of passenger cars. King gives a progress report at an MIA mass meeting at First Baptist Church.

 

16 Dec

K. E. Totten, vice president of National City Lines in Chicago, parent company of Montgomery City Lines, meets with Mayor Gayle and Montgomery City Commissioners Frank Parks and Clyde Sellers.

 

17 Dec

During a meeting with the city commission and MIA leaders, Totten leaves it up to the citizens of Montgomery to resolve the question of segregation. After the meeting, Mayor Gayle appoints a committee composed of eight black leaders, including King, and eight white leaders to resolve the crisis. The committee deadlocks on a resolution offered by the white members to postpone the boycott until 15 January but agrees to a resolution requesting more courtesy from the bus drivers. The carpool reportedly involves two hundred private cars, over one hundred taxis, and eight gas stations.

 

18 Dec

King preaches at Dexter.

 

19 Dec

After a contentious two-hour meeting, the Mayor's committee adjourns when Luther Ingalls, secretary of the local Citizens' Council, joins the group. King charges that certain white members come to the meetings with "preconceived ideas." King presides at and addresses an MIA mass meeting at Hutchinson Street Baptist Church.

 

22 Dec

The MIA executive board agrees to make no concessions on its three basic demands and to hold no further conferences with the city commission and the bus company until they recognize the legitimacy of these demands. An evening MIA mass meeting is held at Mt. Zion AME Zion Church.

 

25 Dec

The black ministers of Montgomery and their congregations place an advertisement explaining the nature of the boycott in the Sunday edition of the Montgomery Advertiser and the Alabama Journal detailing complaints and presenting proposals. King preaches at Dexter on "The Light That Shineth Amid Darkness."

 

26 Dec

An MIA mass meeting is held at Beulah Baptist Church.

 

29 Dec

An MIA mass meeting is held at Day Street Baptist Church.

 

30 Dec

Mayor W. A. Gayle urges Montgomery citizens to patronize city buses or risk losing the bus company's business.

 

1956

 

3 Jan

The Montgomery City Lines suggests to the city commission that unless fares are doubled it will have to shut down, because it is losing as much as twenty-two cents a mile. The fare increase is approved the following day.

 

5 Jan

King presides at an MIA mass meeting held at St. John AME Church.

 

6 Jan

More than one thousand people attend a meeting of the Central Alabama Citizens' Council. Police Commissioner Clyde Sellers appears at the meeting and announces that he will join the council.

 

8 Jan

King, Sr., preaches at Dexter while King, Jr., preaches a sermon on "The Death of Evil on the Seashore" at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

 

9 Jan

King and other MIA leaders meet with the city commission for two hours but resolve nothing. King speaks at an MIA mass meeting at Bethel Baptist Church.

 

10 Jan

Complying with an Interstate Commerce Commission order to end segregation in airline, railroad, and bus terminals serving interstate passengers, the Louisville and Nashville Railroad removes signs enforcing segregation from all of its Alabama terminals.

 

11 Jan

At the request of Circuit Solicitor William F. Thetford, Police Commissioner Sellers initiates an investigation of the Montgomery movement. Police Chief G. J. Ruppenthal delivers copies of Montgomery city ordinances requiring segregated facilities to managers of bus and train stations.

 

12 Jan

In response to the city's rejection of its most recent offer to end the boycott, the MIA executive board decides to boycott the buses indefinitely.

 

14 Jan

Montgomery Advertiser reporter Thomas Johnson interviews King at Dexter for an article scheduled to appear on 19 January.

 

15 Jan

King preaches at Dexter on "How Do We Believe in a Good God in the Face of Glaring Evil?"

 

16 Jan

At a mass meeting, King announces that the MIA will hold a general mass meeting every Monday and five meetings every Thursday night in different areas of the city. He reports that he has received threats from telephone callers.

 

17 Jan

King leaves Montgomery to attend a session of the National Baptist Convention in Hot Springs, Arkansas, with his parents. City Commissioner Sellers asserts that eighty-five to ninety percent of Montgomery blacks want to ride the buses but are afraid of violence.

 

18 Jan

The white members of the bi-racial Mayor's committee insist that state and local law require segregation but recommend reserved sections for white and black passengers in proportion to the average number of riders of each race. King and other black committee members reject the recommendation.

 

19 Jan

An Montgomery Advertiser article entitled "The Rev. King is Boycott Boss" reports that, though King agrees with the NAACP position on the abolishment of segregation, the bus boycott seeks only a "better form of segregation." An MIA mass meeting is held at King Hill Baptist Church.

 

21 Jan

After meeting with "a group of prominent Negro ministers," the city commission announces that the bus situation is resolved. King calls an emergency meeting of the MIA executive board and charges that the statement is misleading, because no MIA leaders were at the meeting. On Saturday night and Sunday morning, King and other members of the MIA board announce that the boycott is still on.

 

22 Jan

King preaches at Dexter on "Redirecting Our Missionary Zeal."

 

23 Jan

Mayor Gayle declares that there will be no more discussions with black leaders until the MIA is willing to end the boycott. All three members of the city commission announce they will join the local Citizens' Council. At a meeting of the MIA executive board, King offers his resignation, but it is not accepted. A large crowd attending a mass meeting at Beulah Baptist Church affirms support for the boycott.

 

24 Jan

Mayor Gayle urges whites to stop offering rides to blacks who work for them. Commissioner Frank Parks receives "dozens" of telephone calls from businessmen who report that they will fire blacks who boycott the buses.

 

26 Jan

Rufus A. Lewis and four other Montgomery blacks organize a transit company and petition the city commission for a franchise to operate it. King leaves Dexter to share a ride with a friend and the church secretary. After picking up three others at an MIA station, King's car is stopped for traveling 30 miles per hour in a 25 mph zone. He is arrested, fingerprinted, photographed, and jailed. Abernathy arrives to bail him out but, as a crowd gathers at the jail, prison officials escort King out of the jail and drive him back to town. According to King, on this day and the previous two, over one hundred traffic citations are issued to carpool drivers. Later that evening, a group of King's friends decide to organize protection for him. Seven MIA mass meetings are held in the evening to accommodate black residents interested in hearing the story of King's arrest.

 

27 Jan

The MIA and other black civic and ministerial organizations publish a statement in the Montgomery Advertiser declaring that they do not seek to challenge segregation laws but to express dissatisfaction with treatment on city buses. The MIA holds an executive board meeting. According to King's later account in Stride Toward Freedom, King 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.

 

28 Jan

King is fined fourteen dollars by Recorder's Court Judge Luther H. Waller for speeding.

 

29 Jan

King speaks at Dexter's Youth Day Service.

 

30 Jan

The MIA executive board authorizes Fred D. Gray to file a federal suit challenging segregation on Montgomery buses. At 9:15 p.m., while King is speaking before two thousand congregants at a mass meeting at First Baptist Church, his home is bombed. Coretta Scott King and their daughter, Yolanda Denise, are not injured. King addresses a large crowd that gathers outside the house, pleading for nonviolence. The city commission promises police protection for King and offers a $500 reward for the capture and conviction of the persons responsible for the bombing. The Kings stay at the home of Dexter deacon J. T. Brooks. Late that night, King, Sr., arrives in an attempt to convince his son and family to return to Atlanta, but King refuses.

 

31 Jan

King and four other leaders meet with Alabama Governor James E. Folsom to express their lack of confidence in the protection offered by the Montgomery city police.

 

1 Feb

Fred D. Gray and Charles D. Langford file a Federal District Court petition that becomes Browder v. Gayle on behalf of five Montgomery women to enjoin the city commissioners from enforcing segregation on city buses. At the county sheriff's office, King, Abernathy, and Rev. H. H. Hubbard apply for a permit to allow a night watchman at King's home to carry a gun. Sheriff Butler denies the permit. A bomb explodes in the yard of E. D. Nixon, the MIA treasurer.

 

2 Feb

King and the MIA executive board approve a security patrol at mass meetings and agree to move MIA headquarters from the Alabama Negro Baptist Center to Abernathy's First Baptist Church. Jeanetta Reese withdraws from the suit filed by Gray and Langford, explaining that she and her husband have been threatened with economic retaliation and violence. King presides at the MIA-NAACP meeting at the Baptist Center.

 

5 Feb

King preaches at Dexter on "It's Hard to be a Christian."

 

6 Feb

After several days of demonstrations, white citizens and students riot at the University of Alabama against the court-ordered admission of Autherine Lucy, the first black student in the school's history. The University's board of trustees responds by barring Lucy from attending classes. King speaks at an MIA mass meeting at Day Street Baptist Church. The local Selective Service Board changes Fred D. Gray's draft classification from 4-D, an exempt status, to 1-A.

 

7 Feb

Responding to a Montgomery Advertiser report that the MIA executive board will consider ending the boycott, King says that any recommendations agreed upon by the board would be voted on by a full meeting of the MIA at the next mass meeting.

 

8 Feb

The MIA executive board meets. King denies that the meeting had been called to discuss the end of the boycott. The Men of Montgomery, a civic group of white businessmen, releases a statement calling for an end to racial tension.

 

9 Feb

In a telegram to President Eisenhower, AFL-CIO President George Meany urges an FBI investigation of violence in Montgomery and elsewhere in Alabama. Abernathy speaks at an MIA mass meeting in King's absence.

 

10 Feb

Eleven thousand people attending a Citizens' Council rally in Montgomery cheer Mayor Gayle and Police Commissioner Sellers for their support of segregation on Montgomery buses.

 

11 Feb

King arrives in Chicago for a speaking engagement.

 

12 Feb

King preaches the anniversary sermon at Shiloh Baptist Church in Chicago.

 

13 Feb

Judge Eugene Carter directs the Montgomery county grand jury to determine whether the boycott of Montgomery buses violates of Alabama's anti-boycott law. While in Chicago, King and Rev. Owen D. Pelt meet with officials of the United Packinghouse Workers Union to discuss lobbying the Chicago-based parent company of the Montgomery City Lines, the National City Lines.

 

14 Feb

In a Chicago news conference, King reports that a grand jury is investigating the "legality" of the bus boycott and predicts that several leaders of the Montgomery movement will be indicted. King leaves Chicago by train for Atlanta.

 

16 Feb

King returns to Montgomery and addresses an MIA mass meeting at First Baptist Church.

 

18 Feb

Fred D. Gray is charged by the Montgomery Grand Jury with "unlawful appearance as an attorney" for representing Jeanetta Reese after she had withdrawn from the suit. King and his family drive to Atlanta where he releases a statement condemning the grand jury's actions. King then travels to Nashville for a series of speaking engagements.

 

19 Feb

At 11 a.m., King gives a sermon entitled "What is Man?" at Fisk Memorial Chapel in Nashville as part of Fisk University's Religious Emphasis Week. While in Nashville, King visits Vanderbilt University and concludes that ninety percent of the white students he speaks with are willing to accept integration.

 

20 Feb

At 11 a.m., King speaks at Nashville's Public Health Lecture Hall of Meharry Medical College on the "Three Dimensions of a Complete Life." The bus company and the city commission endorse a proposal by the Men of Montgomery that does not meet the MIA's demands. Abernathy reports that the congregants at a mass meeting vote down the proposal by a margin of 3,998 to 2.

 

21 Feb

At 9:40 a.m., King speaks at Tennessee State University in Nashville on "Going Forward by Going Backward." The Montgomery grand jury indicts 115 leaders (later reduced to 89) of the Montgomery movement on misdemeanor charges of violating Alabama's anti-boycott law. Bayard Rustin arrives in Montgomery and speaks with Abernathy and Nixon. Late in the evening, King speaks on the telephone with Abernathy about the indictments.

 

22 Feb

Seventy-five indicted boycott leaders appear at the county jail where they are arrested and released on bond. King flies to Atlanta where a group of family friends convened by his father fail to dissuade him from returning to Montgomery. In Montgomery, Judge Carter upholds the conviction of Rosa Parks by the Recorder's Court. City attorneys move to dismiss the suit in federal district court by Gray and Langford.

 

23 Feb

King, his father and family drive to Montgomery. King goes to the county jail, is arrested and released on bond. He agrees to plead guilty to the speeding charge filed against him in January. King and other leaders meet with Arthur D. Shores and Peter Hall, Birmingham attorneys sent to Montgomery by the NAACP to assist in defending the indicted leaders. About five thousand people hear King address an evening MIA mass meeting at First Baptist Church.

 

24 Feb

King and other indicted leaders are arraigned in Circuit Court and plead not guilty to boycott-related charges. Judge Carter assigns a trial date for the week of 19 March. King and the MIA board request that all supporters walk to work. King and other leaders gather in the evening to discuss nonviolence with Bayard Rustin.

 

26 Feb

King preaches at Dexter on "Faith in Man." Rustin attends the services and meets with the Kings in the evening.

 

27 Feb

King addresses an MIA meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church.

 

28 Feb

Fellowship of Reconciliation field secretary Glenn E. Smiley arrives in Montgomery and interviews King.

 

29 Feb

King and other indicted leaders agree to forego a trial by jury, allowing Judge Carter to hear their case. In Friendship, a northern group coordinating economic aid for those involved in the southern fight for integration, holds its founding conference.

 

1 Mar

Gray files a bill of demurrer in Montgomery Circuit Court charging that the 1921 Alabama anti-boycott law used to arrest the bus boycott leaders is unconstitutional. King presides at and gives opening remarks at an MIA meeting at the Hutchinson Street Baptist Church.

 

5 Mar

King speaks at an MIA meeting at Bethel Baptist Church.

 

6 Mar

Alabama state legislators introduce strict new racial segregation bills, including one that strengthens segregation on buses and at public events. The Alabama lower house also unanimously approves a resolution urging the Supreme Court to modify its school desegregation decision.

 

7 Mar

King, Rustin, and William Worthy meet in Birmingham to discuss MIA tactics and strategy.

 

8 Mar

Gray and Langford amend Browder v. Gayle, removing Jeanetta Reese from the list of plaintiffs.

 

11 Mar

Kelly Miller Smith, pastor of First Baptist Church in Nashville, is Youth Day speaker at Dexter.

 

12 Mar

Ninety-six U.S. congressmen from eleven southern states issue a "Southern Manifesto," which declares the Brown decision an abuse of judicial power and pledges to use all lawful means to resist its implementation.

 

13 Mar

Alabama Governor Folsom publicly denounces "mobocracy" and urges Montgomery city officials and black leaders to reach a settlement of the bus boycott.

 

14 Mar

Eisenhower states at his weekly news conference that he wants a congressional joint commission established to facilitate a meeting of black and white leaders from the South.

 

18 Mar

King preaches at Dexter on "When Peace Becomes Obnoxious." On the eve of the trial against boycott leaders, 8,000 people attend prayer meetings in Montgomery to show their continued support for the boycott.

 

19 Mar

King, the first of eighty-nine leaders to be tried, appears in a Montgomery courtroom for his four-day trial. In opening remarks at an evening mass meeting at St. John's AME Church, King urges the protesters to maintain their morale and declares that "we want no cowards in our crowd."

 

20 Mar

The prosecution continues its case against King.

 

21 Mar

Defense attorneys for King begin their presentation. In a press conference, President Eisenhower urges the South to "show progress" but calls for moderation on both sides of the segregation issue.

 

22 Mar

King testifies at his trial in his own defense. Judge Carter finds him guilty of leading an illegal boycott and sentences him to pay a $500 fine plus court costs or to serve 386 days in jail. The sentence is suspended when King files an appeal and is released on $1,000 bond. Judge Carter orders a continuance in the other cases until final appeals are completed in King's case. At an evening mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, King announces that the boycott will continue and that his conviction has not lessened his determination.

 

23 Mar

King's attorneys begin the formal appeals process. Fred D. Gray, speaking in King's place at the Union Methodist Church in Boston, tells the crowd that Montgomery blacks will not give up.

 

25 Mar

King addresses a congregation of 2,500 people at the Concord Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York. The rally, sponsored by the Brooklyn Chapter of the National Association of Business and Professional Women's Clubs, raises more than $4,000 for the MIA. Members of Montgomery's Bell Street Baptist Church vote to remove their pastor and MIA secretary, U. J. Fields, from his post.

 

27 Mar

Alabama Attorney General John Patterson files a motion urging dismissal of the Browder v. Gayle federal suit against Montgomery and Alabama transportation segregation laws on the grounds that the case should be heard in a state court first.

 

28 Mar

The National Deliverance Day of Prayer is observed in cities nationwide as churches and synagogues keep their doors open all day and urge boycott supporters to donate one hour's worth of pay to the MIA. The Massachusetts legislature suspends activities for an hour in support of the bus boycott.

 

29 Mar

King gives opening remarks at an MIA meeting at Hutchinson Street Baptist Church. The Louisville Defender publishes King's speech, "When Peace becomes Obnoxious."

 

30 Mar

King announces that the MIA is planning a block-by-block voter registration campaign among Montgomery blacks.

 

Apr

Liberation publishes King's article, "Our Struggle."

 

1 Apr

King preaches at Dexter's Easter Sunday services.

 

2 Apr

The Montgomery city commissioners deny the MIA's request for permission to establish and operate a black-operated bus company. King gives opening remarks at an evening MIA mass meeting at Beulah Baptist Church.

 

3 Apr

Montgomery City Lines receives permission from the city commissioners to reduce its bus service by another 135 miles.

 

10 Apr

In Birmingham King speaks to the Baptist Minister's Conference in the morning and to the Birmingham Hungry Club at the YMCA in the afternoon. In the evening, King speaks on "The Negro's Re-evaluation of his Nature and Destiny" at the Pan-Community Council Annual Forum at Mt. Zion Baptist Church.

 

11 Apr

The Chicago NAACP sponsors an "Hour of Prayer" and rally. Ralph D. Abernathy and Roy Wilkins speak to a Chicago Coliseum audience of 5,000 that contributes $2,500 for the MIA.

 

13 Apr

King speaks before 1,600 people on "The Declaration of Independence and the Negro" at the Chicago Area Conference of Religious Liberals' Jefferson Day Rally at the University of Chicago's Rockefeller Memorial Chapel.

 

14 Apr

At the Ohio NAACP's Annual Banquet in Columbus, King criticizes William Faulkner's call for gradualism in the South.

 

15 Apr

J. Pius Barbour preaches on "Can You Change a Social Order Without Violence?" at Dexter. Over the next three days, Barbour gives the Spring Lecture Series in the evenings at Dexter.

 

16 Apr

King gives opening remarks at an MIA meeting at First Baptist Church. Students at South Carolina State College in Orangeburg refuse to go to classes after the governor orders police to the campus.

 

17 Apr

Black citizens in Capetown, South Africa, boycott the city's bus lines after the National Transport Commission orders all blacks to sit upstairs on double-decker buses.

 

20 Apr

King speaks at a mass meeting at Detroit's Bethel AME Church organized by Jesse Jai McNeil.

 

22 Apr

King gives the Youth Day sermon at Good Street Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas.

 

23 Apr

In Flemming v. South Carolina Electric and Gas Company, the Supreme Court affirms a federal appellate court ruling striking down segregated seating on buses in Columbia, S.C., and making segregation on any public transportation illegal. Montgomery City Lines informs its drivers that they can no longer enforce segregation on the city buses, but Mayor Gayle announces that Montgomery will continue to enforce state and city segregation laws. Government officials throughout the South denounce the court's decision and C. C. Owen, president of the Alabama Public Service Commission, claims that the ruling does not apply to Alabama. In the evening, King gives opening remarks at an MIA mass meeting at Dexter. He tells reporters that the boycott will continue until the MIA decides how to react to the court's ruling.

 

24 Apr

Bus lines in thirteen southern cities, including Dallas and Richmond, discontinue segregation in response to the Supreme Court ruling, but officials in Alabama and Georgia pledge to resist the ruling. Montgomery Police Commissioner Sellers announces that drivers who permit desegregation on their buses will be arrested. After a meeting of the MIA executive committee, King announces that there will be no immediate change in strategy and the boycott will continue. In Washington, D.C., seventy-five black leaders convene at a State of the Race conference to discuss rising racial tensions in the South. A Louisiana judge orders a permanent halt of all NAACP activities in the state.

 

25 Apr

B. W. Franklin, vice president of National City Lines, announces that the company will stand behind any of its drivers who are arrested for refusing to enforce segregation. Mayor Gayle and Sellers imply they might revoke the franchise or seek a court injunction against Montgomery City Lines if it violates local segregation statutes. Officials at National City Lines tell the MIA that union contract stipulations make it nearly impossible for them to hire black drivers.

 

26 Apr

King presides and gives a speech at a mass meeting at Day Street Baptist Church, and more than 3,000 people vote unanimously to continue the boycott until the city "withdraws its threats to arrest drivers and passengers who violate segregation laws."

 

27 Apr

A meeting between Montgomery officials and bus line representatives fails to produce a solution.

 

29 Apr

King preaches Sunday service at Dexter on "Fleeing from God." In the afternoon, he is the Men's Day speaker at the Hunter's Chapel AME Zion Church in tusacaloosa.

 

30 Apr

King gives opening remarks at an MIA mass meeting held at Holt Street Baptist Church.

 

May

Fellowship publishes King's article, "Walk for Freedom."

 

1 May

Montgomery city officials file suit in Montgomery Circuit Court asking for a temporary injunction to restrain the bus company from implementing its desegregation policy.

 

2 May

Attorneys for the Montgomery City Lines file a demurrer in Circuit Court requesting dismissal of the city's bill of complaint against the bus company.

 

9 May

Circuit Court Judge Jones rules that Montgomery and Alabama segregation laws are constitutional and orders Montgomery City Lines to abandon its new policy of not enforcing segregation. Spokesmen for the bus company announce that the company will comply with the court order.

 

10 May

At an MIA mass meeting MIA leaders circulate a questionnaire assessing community interest in the establishment of an MIA bank.

 

11 May

A three-judge U.S. District Court panel hears Browder v. Gayle. Judges Richard Rives, Seybourn Lynne, and Frank Johnson, Jr., hear testimony by city and state officials, employees of the bus company, and the four black women plaintiffs.

 

12 May

King, King, Sr., and Abernathy attend a meeting of eighteen leaders of the Southern desegregation movement organized by Glenn E. Smiley and the FOR at Morehouse College in Atlanta. The U.S. District Court hearing in the case of Browder v. Gayle ends.

 

13 May

King preaches at Dexter on Mother's Day,"The Role of the Negro Mother in Preparing Youth for Integration."

 

14 May

Eleanor Roosevelt, in her "My Day" column, reports on her meeting with Rosa Parks.

 

15 May

King is in Berkeley, California, to receive a book of recognition and remembrance from the Stiles Hall University YMCA.

 

17 May

King preaches on "The Death of Evil Upon the Seashore" to an audience of 10,000 in New York's Cathedral of St. John the Divine in observance of the National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving. In the evening, he speaks on "A Realistic Look at Race Relations" at a NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Banquet at the Waldorf-Astoria celebrating the second anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education.

 

18 May

The Unitarian Fellowship for Social Justice awards King, in absentia, its John Haynes Holmes-Arthur L. Weatherly Prize for Outstanding Leadership in Social Justice.

 

19 May

At a Harlem reception organized by the Committee for Better Human Relations, King announces that Montgomery blacks plan to apply for a license to operate an African-American bank.

 

20 May

King gives the Youth Emphasis Day sermon at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Pittsburgh. He remains there through May 23rd to participate in various activities at the church.

 

24 May

Twenty thousand people attend a civil rights rally in Madison Square Garden to hear Eleanor Roosevelt, Roy Wilkins, A. Phillip Randolph, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr., and Autherine Lucy Foster. E. D. Nixon and Rosa Parks represent the MIA at the rally.

 

26 May

Rosa Parks addresses a National Council of Negro Women conference in Washington, D.C.

 

27 May

King preaches at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta for the dedication of its new religious education building.

 

28 May

King attends the Fisk University commencement to receive the first annual Fisk Alumni Award for Distinguished Service. Students at Florida A&M launch a bus boycott in response to the arrest of two female students on 26 May.

 

29 May

The Florida A&M bus boycott spreads to the city of Tallahassee.

 

30 May

Rev. C. K. Steele and Tallahassee's Inter-Civic Council confer with the city manager, call for first-come, first-served seating on buses, more courteous treatment, and the hiring of black drivers. Despite the decision by city officials not to prosecute the two Florida A&M students, the bus boycott in Tallahassee gains momentum.

 

31 May

King offers his "Recommendations" at an MIA executive board meeting.

 

1 June

Alabama Attorney General John Patterson obtains a court order banning most NAACP activities in Alabama. The injunction, issued by Circuit Court Judge Jones, forbids the Alabama NAACP from fund-raising, collecting dues and recruiting new members. The NAACP denies Patterson's charges that it organized the Montgomery bus boycott or employed Autherine Lucy to integrate the University of Alabama but says it will abide by the injunction.

 

4 June

King presides at an MIA mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, now held only once per week. The Tallahassee City Transit Lines suspends service in the black districts of the city in response to the continuing boycott.

 

5 June

The three-judge U.S. District Court panel rules two-to-one in the case of Browder v. Gayle that segregation on Alabama and Montgomery's intrastate buses is unconstitutional and gives lawyers for each side two weeks to submit written suggestions on how the formal anti-segregation order should be entered. Alabama Public Service Commission President Owen announces that the state will appeal the decision. King says the boycott will continue until the anti-segregation ruling is implemented. Blacks in Birmingham react to the banning of the NAACP in Alabama by organizing the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, led by Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth. In Tallahassee, boycott leaders announce that they now seek desegregation of the city buses.

 

6 June

The Kings and the Abernathys leave Montgomery by automobile for a vacation in in California, stopping first in Los Angeles.

 

10 June

King preaches a guest sermon at the Second Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

 

11 June

After publicly charging that MIA leaders have misappropriated funds from the MIA treasury, Rev. U. J. Fields resigns from his position as secretary of the MIA. The NAACP announces that the organization will take legal steps to dissolve the injunction which bans its operation in Alabama.

 

12 June

The MIA denies any misuse of organization funds and dismisses Field's charges as false.

 

17 June

The congregation of Bell Street Baptist Church votes unanimously to remove Rev. Fields from its pulpit. King cancels a scheduled speaking engagement at the Ward AME Church in Los Angeles in order to return to Montgomery to deal with the crisis.

 

18 June

At a mass meeting at Beulah Baptist Church, Rev. Fields retracts his allegations about the MIA's misappropriation of money and apologizes for his attack on MIA leaders. King asks the crowd to forgive Fields for the false charges.

 

19 June

Attorneys for Alabama respond to the anti-segregation ruling. Hours later, the three-judge panel issues a permanent injunction against segregation on Montgomery city buses, suspending it for 10 days in order to allow appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. The Tallahassee City Transit Lines announces that it will cease operation by 1 July if the bus boycott does not end.

 

21 June

The Montgomery City Commission announces it will appeal the federal court decision to the Supreme Court.

 

23 June

The first issue of the MIA newsletter is released, with Jo Ann Robinson as editor.

 

26 June

At a press conference before the opening of the annual NAACP convention in San Francisco, King proposes a student boycott of segregated schools to force compliance with the Brown decision.

 

27 June

King addresses the forty-seventh annual NAACP Convention in San Francisco on "The Montgomery Story."

 

28 June

The Alabama Public Service Commission formally asks the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the federal district court's June decision to ban segregation on Alabama buses. Montgomery attorneys join the state the following day.

 

29 June

Montgomery City Lines lays off twenty-one drivers.

 

July

Ebony publishes an article entitled, "The King Plan for Freedom."

 

1 July

King receives an Honorable Merit Award at Detroit's Panorama of Progress, sponsored by Diggs Enterprises, Inc.

 

3 July

King receives a Citation for Distinguished Christian Service from the National Fraternity Council of Churches, U.S.A., Inc., in Birmingham.

 

8 July

Samuel D. Proctor, president of Virginia Union University, is Men's Day speaker at Dexter.

 

11 July

A white policeman initially refuses to allow King, his wife, and Robert Williams to pass through the white-only waiting room of the Montgomery railroad station so they could board their train.

 

12 July

King tells a Race Relations Institute meeting at Fisk University that bus boycotts in Birmingham or Miami are likely to fail for demographic reasons. Alabama Attorney General John Patterson subpoenas King to appear as a witness in State of Alabama v. NAACP.

 

17-18 July

King, King, Sr., Abernathy, Steele, and Smiley attend a two-day FOR-sponsored workshop stressing nonviolent social protest tactics at tuskegee Institute.

 

20 July

King addresses an NAACP mass meeting in Washington, D.C. King's appeal of his conviction is submitted to the Alabama Court of Appeals.

 

22 July

King is the guest speaker for Men's Day at New Hope Baptist Church in Niagara Falls, New York.

 

23 July

King addresses home missionary executives at the American Baptist Convention in Green Lake, Wisconsin, on the subject of "Non-Aggression Procedures to Inter-racial Harmony."

 

25 July

Montgomery Circuit Court Judge Jones fines the Alabama NAACP $10,000 and orders the organization to make its records available or face higher fines and suspension of its operations in Alabama.

 

26 July

With King presiding, the MIA executive board concurs with its legal counsel and agrees to wait until the Supreme Court reconvenes in the fall to consider its case challenging Alabama segregation laws, instead of approaching a single Supreme Court justice for an immediate decision.

 

Aug

Redbook publishes William Peter's article about King entitled, "Our Weapon is Love."

 

3 Aug

U.S. News & World Report publishes King's speech made to the annual NAACP convention in San Francisco on 27 June.

 

5 Aug

King gives the main address at the British-American Association of Colored Brothers in Windsor, Ontario.

 

7 Aug

King addresses the National Negro Funeral Directors Association in Cleveland.

 

11 Aug

King testifies before the platform committee of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, recommending a strong civil rights plank in the party platform. In the evening, he speaks in Buffalo, to the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity on "The Birth of a New Age" and receives an Award of Honor.

 

12 Aug

King preaches on "Rediscovering Lost Values" at Mount Olivet Baptist Church in New York City. Homer Alexander Jack speaks on "From Gandhi to Montgomery: The Life and Teachings of Mahatma Gandhi" at Dexter.

 

13 Aug

The Alabama NAACP asks the Alabama Supreme Court to lift the ban on its operations and to revoke the fine placed upon it. The request is denied.

 

23 Aug

King addresses the Montgomery chapter of the Alabama Council on Human Relations.

 

25 Aug

The home of Robert Graetz, the white minister of Trinity Lutheran Church in Montgomery, is bombed.

 

27 Aug

King addresses the Improved Benevolent Protective Order of Elks of the World in Los Angeles and receives the fraternal order's Elijah P. Lovejoy Award. He and leaders of other black Montgomery civic organizations ask President Eisenhower for a federal investigation of racial violence in Montgomery.

 

7 Sept

King preaches at the seventy-sixth annual National Baptist Convention in Denver, on "Paul's Letter to American Christians." Coretta Scott King sings, and Alberta Williams King plays the organ at the convention. Later, King speaks at a "Build Negro Business" meeting at Denver's Zion Baptist Church.

 

8 Sept

Insurance policies on seventeen MIA station wagons are cancelled.

 

9 Sept

King preaches the guest sermon at Macedonia Baptist Church in Denver.

 

12 Sept

King accepts an award in absentia from New York's Afro Arts Theatre.

 

13 Sept

King presides as the MIA executive board creates a special committee to work toward changing "the bitterness or unfavorable attitude" of white citizens.

 

17 Sept

King gives opening remarks at an MIA mass meeting at First Baptist Church.

 

18 Sept

King and the MIA executive board meet and agree to contact the U. S. Justice Department and the F.B.I. for assistance and protection. King, Rev.Graetz and Jo Ann Robinson are assigned to contact Governor James Folsom. Lloyds of London's liability insurance for Christian churches of Montgomery for $11,000 per car becomes effective.

 

25 Sept

The MIA's special committee meets to consider how to create more "wholesome" attitudes among the city's whites. King says, "we should move from protest to reconciliation."

 

26 Sept

King gives opening remarks at an MIA executive board meeting.

 

27 Sept

En route to Hampton, Virginia, King is denied service in the dining room of the Dobbs House Restaurant at the Atlanta Airport. Following this incident, King delivers a speech entitled "The Montgomery Story" at Hampton Institute.

 

30 Sept

Coretta Scott King gives a concert at Dexter.