Civil Rights Struggles in America From King and Beyond! (Release 001)

[H.E. KUM Nelson Bame IV]

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.

Major Events/Chronology: 1929-1968

 

1900- 1950: Racism, segregation and apartheid reigns in a very brutal form in the United States of America.  Both Blacks and Whites of a different Consciousness stood up against it.

A great Citizen of the World rose across the Nation and World vociferously to the end.

 

1929	Born on at noon on January 15, 1929. Parents: The Reverend and Mrs. Martin Luther King, Sr. Home: 501 Auburn Avenue, N.E., Atlanta, Georgia.   15 January Michael King, later known as Martin Luther King, Jr., is born at 501 Auburn Ave. in Atlanta, Georgia.
1944	Graduated from Booker T. Washington High School and was admitted to Morehouse College at age 15.
1948	Graduates from Morehouse College and enters Crozer Theological Seminary. Ordained to the Baptist ministry, February 25, 1948, at age 19.
1951	Enters Boston University for graduate studies.
1953	Marries Coretta Scott and settles in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955	Received Doctorate of Philosophy in Systematic Theology from Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts on June 5, 1955. Dissertation Title: A Comparison of the Conception of God in the Thinking of Paul Tillich and Henry Nelson Wieman. Joins the bus boycott after Rosa Parks was arrested on December 1. On December 5, he is elected president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, making him the official spokesman for the boycott.
1956	On November 13, the Supreme Court rules that bus segregation is illegal, ensuring victory for the boycott.
1957	King forms the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to fight segregation and achieve civil rights. On May 17, Dr. King speaks to a crowd of 15,000 in Washington, D.C.
1958	The U.S. Congress passed the first Civil Rights Act since reconstruction. King's first book, Stride Toward Freedom, is published. On a speaking tour, Martin Luther King, Jr. is nearly killed when stabbed by an assailant in Harlem. Met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Grange on problems affecting black Americans.
1959	Visited India to study Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. Resigns from pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to concentrate on civil rights full time. He moved to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
1960	Becomes co-pastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Lunch counter sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina. In Atlanta, King is arrested during a sit-in waiting to be served at a restaurant. He is sentenced to four months in jail, but after intervention by John Kennedy and Robert Kennedy, he is released. Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee founded to coordinate protests at Shaw University, Raleigh, North Carolina.
1961	In November, the Interstate Commerce Commission bans segregation in interstate travel due to work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Freedom Riders. Congress on Racial Equality (CORE) began first Freedom Ride through the South, in a Greyhound bus, after the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed segregation in interstate transportation.
1962	During the unsuccessful Albany, Georgia movement, King is arrested on July 27 and jailed.
1963	On Good Friday, April 12, King is arrested with Ralph Abernathy by Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor for demonstrating without a permit. On April 13, the Birmingham campaign is launched. This would prove to be the turning point in the war to end segregation in the South. During the eleven days he spent in jail, MLK writes his famous Letter from Birmingham Jail        1963 HIGH-POINT YEAR.     MAY 7, 1963:   Conflict in Birmingham reaches its peak when high-pressure fire hoses force demonstrators from the business district. In addition to hoses, Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor employs dogs, clubs, and cattle prods to disperse four thousand demonstrators in downtown Birmingham. On May 10, the Birmingham agreement is announced. The stores, restaurants, and schools will be desegregated, hiring of blacks implemented, and charges dropped.   JUNE 1963: Strength to Love, King's book of sermons, is published. On June 23, MLK leads 125,000 people on a Freedom Walk in Detroit.     AUGUST 28, 1963: The March on Washington held August 28 is the largest civil rights demonstration in history with nearly 250,000 people in attendance. At the march, King makes his famous I Have a Dream speech. The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom attracts more than two hundred thousand demonstrators to the Lincoln Memorial. Organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, the march is supported by all major civil rights organizations as well as by many labor and religious groups. King delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech. After the march, King and other civil rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House. 1963, Sept 18:  King delivers the eulogy at the funerals of Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Dianne Wesley, three of the four children that were killed during the 15 September bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Carole Robertson, the fourth victim, was buried in a separate ceremony. 1963, October 10: U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorizes the FBI to wiretap King’s home phone. On November 22, President Kennedy is assassinated.
1964	1964 On January 3, King appears on the cover of Time magazine as its Man of the Year.   January 18, 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with King, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and James Farmer and seeks support for his War on Poverty initiative.   On February 2, King is arrested in Selma, Alabama during a voting rights demonstration   February 9, 1964, Robert Haylng, leader of the movement in St. Augustine, Florida, invites King and SCLC to join the struggle. March 26, 1964, King meets Malcolm X in Washington, D.C. for the first and only time. June 1964, King's book Why We Can’t Wait is published.   June 11, 1964, King is arrested and jailed for demanding service at a white-only restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida.     July 2, 1964, King attends the signing ceremony of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the White House on July 2.   July 20, 1964, King and SCLC staff launch a People-to-People tour of Mississippi to assist the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in the Mississippi Freedom Summer campaign. Summer 1964, During the summer, King experiences his first hurtful rejection by black people when he is stoned by Black Muslims in Harlem.   November 18, 1964, After King criticizes the FBI’s failure to protect civil rights workers, the agency’s director J. Edgar Hoover denounces King as "the most notorious liar in the country." A week later he states that SCLC is "spearheaded by Communists and moral degenerates."     December 1, 1964, King meets with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at the Justice Department. December 10, 1964, King is awarded the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10. Dr. King is the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Peace at age 35.
1965	. 1965 The King family moves to their new home at 234 Sunset Avenue in Atlanta. After President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act into law, Martin Luther King, Jr. turns to socioeconomic problems.
	On January 22, King moves into a Chicago slum tenement to attract attention to the living conditions of the poor.   March 7, 1965, In an event that will become known as "Bloody Sunday," voting rights marchers are beaten at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as they attempt to march to Montgomery.   March 17-25, 1965, King, James Forman, and John Lewis lead civil rights marchers from Selma to Montgomery after a U.S. District judge upholds the right of demonstrators to conduct an orderly march. August 12, 1965, King publicly opposes the Vietnam War at a mass rally at the Ninth Annual Convention of SCLC in Birmingham.               1966   January 26, 1966, King and his wife move into an apartment at 1550 South Hamlin Avenue in Chicago to draw attention to the city's poor housing conditions. February 23, 1966, In Chicago, King meets Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad. June 7, 1966, King, Floyd McKissick of CORE, and Stokely Carmichael of SNCC resume James Meredith’s "March Against Fear" from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi, after Meredith was shot and wounded near Memphis. 1967 On March 28, King leads a march that turns violent. This was the first time one of his events had turned violent.   April 4, 1967, King delivers "Beyond Vietnam" to a gathering of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City.   He demands that the U.S. take new initiatives to end the war.   June 1967, King’s book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? is published. On July 10, King initiates a campaign to end discrimination in housing, employment, and schools in Chicago.
	The Supreme Court upholds a conviction of MLK by a Birmingham court for demonstrating without a permit. King spends four days in Birmingham jail. On November 27, King announces the inception of the Poor People's Campaign focusing on jobs and freedom for the poor of all races.   December 4, 1967, King publicly reveals his plans to organize a mass civil disobedience campaign, the Poor People's Campaign, in Washington, D.C., to force the government to end poverty.
	King announces that the Poor People's Campaign will culminate in a March on Washington demanding a $12 billion Economic Bill of Rights guaranteeing employment to the able-bodied, incomes to those unable to work, and an end to housing discrimination. 1968   Delivered I've Been to the Mountaintop speech. March 28, 1968, King leads a march of six thousand protesters in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. The march descends into violence and looting, and King is rushed from the scene.   April 03, 1968, King returns to Memphis, determined to lead a peaceful march. During an evening rally at Mason Temple in Memphis, King delivers his final speech, "I’ve Been to the Mountaintop."   At sunset on April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. There are riots and disturbances in 130 American cities. There were twenty thousand arrests. King's funeral on April 9 is an international event. Within a week of the assassination, the Open Housing Act is passed by Congress.
	On November 2, a national holiday is proclaimed in King's honor.       .

 

 

KUM Nelson Bame Bame IV,
(CEO - Bame International Foundation for Restoration & Economic Development -BIFORD Inc.)
Social Scientist, Computer & Information Scientist, Theologian
Adj. Prof. of Business & Information Technology
Professor of Heaven On Earth (God/ Self-Declared since 2003)
Global Ambassador For Peace -  UPF-UN.(2005-present)
CEO/FOUNDER Multiple Organizations - Worldwide -- since 1997.
www.bamekum.com,  www.bamebame.org, www.un.org; www.bamebame.com, www.upf.org
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A man does what he must in spite of personal consequences, in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressure -- and that is the basis of all human morality. (JFK)