Martin Luther King Essays (3334 words) - Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King Key events in the life of MLK and the civil rights movement 1929 Martin Luther King, Jr. is born to Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. on January 15 in Atlanta, Georgia. 1947 King is licensed to preach and begins assisting his father, who is a pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta. 1948 King is ordained as a Baptist minister on February 25. In June, he graduates from Morehouse College in Atlanta and receives a scholarship to study divinity at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania. 1949 While studying at Crozer, King attends a lecture by Dr. Mordecai Johnson on the life and work of Mahatma Gandhi and is inspired to delve deeper into the teachings of the Indian social philosopher. 1951 King graduates from Crozer with a Bachelor of Divinity degree. He is class valedictorian and winner of the Pearl Plafker Award for most outstanding student. In September, he begins doctoral studies in theology at Boston University, where he studies personalism with Edgar Sheffield Brightman and L. Harold De Wolf. 1953 King marries Coretta Scott at her family's home in Marion, Alabama on June 18. 1954 In May, the Brown v. Board of Education decision paves the way for school desegregation as the Supreme Court of the United States uninamously rules racial segregation in public schools unconstitutional. The same month, King accepts a position as pastor of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. On October 31, he is installed as the church's twentieth pastor. 1955 Having completed his dissertation, King is awarded his Ph.D. from Boston University. On November 17, Yolanda Denise (Yoki), the King's first child is born. Less than one month later, on December 5, the Montgomery bus boycott begins after Mrs. Rosa Park, a seamstress, is arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. King is elected president of the newly formed Montgomery Improvement Association and assumes leadership of the boycott, which will last 381 days. 1956 The King's home is bombed on January 30. Although Mrs. King and Yolanda are at home with a friend, no one is injured. In Early February, the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa is ordered by the Supreme Court to admit its first black student, Autherine Lucy. When white students demonstrate, Lucy is suspended from the University of Alabama for reasons of safety. A federal district judge orders her reinstated. When she is expelled again, she makes no further effort to enroll, and the University remains segregated until 1963. On February 21, King is indicted, along with twenty-four other ministers and more than one hundred other blacks, for conspiring to prevent the Montgomery bus company from operation of business. A United States Discrit Court rules on June 4 that racial segregation on Alabama's city bus lines is unconstitutional. On November 13, the United States Supreme Court uninamously upholds the decision. On December 21, blacks and whites in Montgomery ride for the first time on previously segregated buses. 1957 More than sixty black ministers, committed to a southern civil rights movement, respond to King's call for a meeting. In Atlanta on January 9 and 10, they form the organization that will become the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SLCL). While King and Rev. Ralph Abernathy are in Atlanta for the meeting, Abernathy's home and church are bombed in Montgomery. Three other Baptist churches and the home of a white minister are also bombed in response to the victory of the bus boycott. On February 14, the SCLC meets formally for the first time in New Orleans. King is unanimously elected president. On May 17, three years to the day after the Brown v. Board of Education decision, King participates with other civil rights leaders in a Prayer Pilgrimage to Washington. He delivers his first major national address, calling for black voting rights. The next month, he meets with Vice-President Richard Nixon. On September 9, Congress passes the 1957 Civil Rights Act, the first civil rights legislation since Reconstruction. The act created the Civil Rights Commission, established the Civil Right Division of the Justice Department, and empowered the federal government to seek court injunctions against obstruction of voting rights. The same month, President Dwight D. Eisenhower federalizes the Arkansas National Guard to escort nine black students to Little Rock Central High, a previously all-white high school. A thousand para-troopers are sent to restore