Dr. King Chronology (4)


Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Chronology (Section 5 of 5)
June 6: James Meredith is shot soon after beginning his 220- mile
“March Against Fear” from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi.
June: Stokely Carmichael and Willie Ricks (SNCC) use the slogan “Black Power” in public for the 昀椀rst time, before reporters in
Greenwood, Mississippi.
July 10: Dr. King launches a drive to make Chicago an “open city”
in regard to housing.
August 5: Dr. King is stoned in Chicago as he leads a march
through crowds of angry whites in the Gage Park section of Chicago’s Southwest Side.
September: SCLC launches a project with the aim of integrating
schools in Grenada, Mississippi. Fall. SCLC initiates the Alabama
Citizen Education Project in Wilcox County
n 1967
January: Dr. King writes his book Where Do We Go from Here?
while in Jamaica.
March 12: Alabama is ordered to desegregate all public schools.
March 25: Dr. King attacks the government’s Vietnam policy in a
speech at the Chicago Coliseum.
May 10-11: One black student is killed in rioting on the cam-pus of
all-Negro Jackson State College, Jackson Mississippi.
July 6: The Justice Department reports that more than 50 percent
of all eligible black voters are registered in Mississippi, Georgia,
Alabama, Louisiana, and South Carolina.
July 12-17: Twenty-three people die, 725 are injured in riots in
Newark, New Jersey.
July 23-30: Forty-three die, 324 are injured in the Detroit riots, the
worst of the century.
July 26: Black leaders Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., A. Philip Randolph, Roy Wilkins, and Whitney Young appeal for an end to the riots, “which have proved ineffective and damaging to the civil rights
cause and the entire nation.”
October 30: The Supreme Court upholds the contempt-of- court
convictions of Dr. King and seven other black leaders who led
1963 marches in Birmingham. Dr. King and his enter jail to serve
four-day sentences.
November 27: Dr. King announces the formation by SCLC of a
Poor People’s Campaign, with the aim of representing the problems poor blacks and whites.
n 1968
February 12: Sanitation workers strike in Memphis, Tennessee.
March 28:. Dr. King leads six thousand protesters on a march
through downtown Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers. Disorders break out during which black youths loot stores.
One sixteen-year-old is killed and 昀椀fty persons are injured.
April 3: Dr. King’s last speech, entitled “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop,” is delivered at the Memphis Masonic Temple.
April 4: A sniper assassinates Dr. King as he stands talking on the
balcony of his second 昀氀oor room at the Lorraine Motel in Mem-
phis. He dies in St. Joseph’s Hospital from a gunshot wound in
the neck. James Earl Ray is later captured and convicted of the
murder.
n 1986
January 18: Following passage of Public Law 98-144, President
Ronald Reagan signs a proclamation declaring the third Monday
in January of each year a public holiday in honor of the birthday of
Martin Luther King, Jr.
n 1998
July 16: President Bill Clinton signed a Joint Resolution authorizing a memorial for Dr. King to be built on the National Mall in
Washington, D.C.
n 2006
November 13: Ceremonial Ground Breaking at the National Mall
in Washington, D.C. for the Dr. Martin Luther King Memorial.
n 2009
October: The Memorial’s 昀椀nal design was approved by federal
agencies and a building permit was issued.
n 2011
August 27: Opening of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial, Washington, DC.
October 16: The Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. National Memorial is
of昀椀cially dedicated by President Barack Obama.
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