This year on January 18, the nation will celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr., born on January 15, 1929. Though he was just 39 when he was assassinated in 1968, the civil rights leader made an indelible impact on the civil rights movement and on the country as a whole.
You can read thousands of articles about important events during the public life of Martin Luther King, Jr., on Newspapers.com. Below is a selection to get you started:
- King’s home is bombed in 1956
- King delivers his first national address at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in 1957
- King and other civil rights figures meet President Eisenhower in 1958
- King is stabbed by Izola Ware Curry in 1958
- King travels to India to learn about Gandhi in 1959
- King is sent to jail in Birmingham in 1963, where he writes the famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail”
- King gives his “I Have a Dream” speech in 1963 at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom
- King accepts the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964
- King is assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968
- King is buried in Atlanta on April 9, 1968
- King’s birthday is made a federal holiday in 1983
- First federal observance of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day in 1986
Do you have any personal stories about Martin Luther King, Jr.? Tell us about them! You can also find many more articles about Martin Luther King, Jr., and the civil rights movement on Newspapers.com.
I had the privilege of attending some rather extensive college graduate studies on the Civil Rights Movement back in the ’60s. This was shortly after Dr. King’s assassination. I met and was taught by several prominent members of his entourage from GA. Based on what I learned, I do not think Dr. King would be too pleased with the way the movement has evolved. This was graduate work out of Clark U in Atlanta but offered on a local college campus here in VA. I was thrilled to be chosen and later, in a very favorable capacity, helped spearhead this fledgling movement in preparing the public school districts that were faced with court ordered desegregation throughout the commonwealth of VA. I had some interesting and also some threatening encounters with die hard segregationists.