Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
He touched at the very truth of who we are as human beings.” Former Oklahoma City Archbishop Eusebius Beltran, who participated in marches organized by King, told Carla Hinton, The Oklahoman’s religion editor, in 2005.
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States. This year will be the 50th anniversary of King’s assassination. See 50 King Moments in the civil rights leader’s life, including his visits to Oklahoma.
Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States. This year, organizations across the nation will recognize the 50th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s assassination, which took place April 4 ,1 968. King spoke in Oklahoma on at least three occasions. The following is a biographic sketch highlighting 50 moments in King’s life, including his visits to the Sooner State.
1929: On Jan. 15, Michael King is born at noon in the family home at 501 Auburn Ave. in Atlanta, Georgia. He is the first son and second child born to Rev. Michael King Sr. and Alberta Williams King.
1934: On a trip to Germany, his father, a pastor at Atlanta’s Ebenezer Baptist Church, is inspired by Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformation leader. The elder King changes his name, and the name of his son, from Michael to Martin Luther.
1944: On Sept. 20, after attending segregated public schools during his childhood, King starts Morehouse College in Atlanta. He is 15 years old.
Influenced by Morehouse President Benjamin E. Mays, who taught him how Christianity could be a force for social activism, King is ordained during his final semester. Also in his senior year, King joins the Intercollegiate Council, an interracial student group out of Emory University.
1946: On Aug. 6, the Atlanta Constitution publishes King’s letter to the editor.
King writes that blacks “want and are entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens: The right to earn a living at work for which we are fitted by training and ability; equal opportunities in education, health, recreation, and similar public services; the right to vote; equality before the law; some of the same courtesy and good manners that we ourselves bring to all human relations.”
1948: On Feb. 25, King is ordained and appointed as sistant pastor at Ebenezer. Later this year, he earns a bachelor’s degree in sociology from Morehouse.
1951: On May 6-8, King graduates from Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania, with a bach elor’s degree in divinity. He delivers the valedictory address.
On Sept. 13, King begins his doctoral studies in systematic theology at Boston University’s School of Theology. During his time in Boston, he preaches in area churches, and at Ebenezer in Atlanta during school breaks.
And, he meets Coretta Scott, an Alabama native and Antioch College graduate who is studying at the New England Conservatory of Music.
1953: On June 18, King marries Coretta Scott at the Scott home near Marion, Alabama.
This year, he preaches in Oklahoma City at Calvary Baptist Church, but is not hired as pastor. In 2012, black historian Currie Ballard tells The Oklahoman writer Ken Raymond: “I interviewed one of the senior deacons, and he said, ‘Well, Ballard, the reason we didn’t hire Dr. King is he didn’t have enough gravy.’ I asked what he meant. He said, ‘He just wasn’t old enough.’”
1954: On Sept. 1, King begins his pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.
1955: On June 5, King earns his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University.
On Nov. 17, Yolanda Denise King, the Kings’ first child, is born.
On Dec. 1, Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to give up her city bus seat to a white man in Montgomery. A one-day boycott of the buses is organized five days later, the same day civil rights activists form the Montgomery Improvement Association.
King becomes the group’s president.
1956: On Jan. 27, King receives a threatening phone call late in the evening. According to his writings, King gains strength to continue his civil rights mission.
On Jan. 30, King’s home is bombed while he is delivering a public speech. His family is not injured. King later pleads for nonviolence to an angry crowd gathered outside his home.
The year ends with U.S. Supreme Court affirming a lower court opinion declaring Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws unconstitutional.
On Dec. 21, when Montgomery buses resume full service on all routes, King is among the first passengers to ride the integrated lines.
1957: On Jan 10-11 in Atlanta, King is named chairman of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent
Integration, which would become the Southern Chris tian Leadership Conference.
On Feb. 18, King appears on the cover of Time magazine.
On March 6, King attends the independence celebra tions of the new nation of Ghana in West Africa. He meets with Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.
On May 17, at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King delivers his first national address, “Give Us The Ballot,” at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.
On June 13, King and Ralph D. Abernathy meet with Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
1958: On June 23, King and other civil rights leaders meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washing ton.
On Sept. 17, King’s first book, “Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story,” is published.
At a book signing in Harlem, New York, King is stabbed by Izola Ware Curry. At Harlem Hospital, doctors remove a seven-inch letter opener from King’s chest.
1960: On Feb. 1, King moves from Montgom ery to Atlanta to devote more time to SCLC, and to co-pastor Ebenezer with his father.
On July 28, about 1,500 people arrive at First Baptist Church North Tul sa to hear King, 31, de liver a message in which he says “We must all live together as brothers or we will die together as fools.”
On July 29, King returns to Oklahoma City, and Calvary Baptist Church, speaking at a “Freedom Rally” to more than 1,500 people.
The Daily Oklahoman describes King as “a leading Ne gro integrationist,” who had taken note of Oklahoma’s achievements on integration.
“It is commendable that Oklahoma has gone as far as it has in complying with the supreme court’s decision,” King is quoted as saying. “This should be a challenge to carry desegration into all areas.”
On Oct. 19, King is arrested during a sit-in demonstra tion at an Atlanta department store. He is sentenced to four months of hard labor for violating a suspended sentence he received for a 1956 traffic violation. He is released days later on a $2,000 bond.
1961: On Oct. 16, King meets with President John F. Kennedy and urges him to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to eliminate racial segregation.
On Dec. 16, King, Abernathy, Albany Movement President William G. Anderson and other protesters are arrested during a campaign in Albany, Georgia.
1962: On July 10-27, King is arrested at an Albany, Geor gia prayer vigil. He spends two weeks in jail.
On Sept. 28, During the closing session of the SCLC conference in Birmingham, Alabama, King is assaulted by a member of the American Nazi Party, who twice hits the civil rights leader in the face.
1963: On March 28, Bernice Albertine, King’s fourth child, is born.
On April 16, King writes “Letter From Birmingham Jail.” He and Abernathy were arrested on April 12 and released on April 19.
On Aug. 28, King delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial.
On Sept. 18, King delivers the eulogies of Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Dianne Wesley, three of the four black children who were killed during the bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Carole Robertson, the fourth victim, was buried in a separate ceremony.
On Oct. 10, U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorizes the FBI to wiretap King’s home phone. 1964: On Jan. 3, King is named “Man of the Year” by Time.
On Jan. 18, President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with King, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and James Farmer, and seeks support for his War on Poverty initiative.
On March 26, during the rise of black militant groups, King meets Malcolm X in Washington, D.C. for the first and only time.
On June 11, King is arrest ed and jailed for demanding service at a whites-only restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida.
On Nov. 18, af ter 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 says the SCLC is “spearheaded by Communists and moral degenerates.”
On Dec. 1, King meets with Hoover at the Justice Department.
On Dec. 10, King receives the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway.
In his acceptance speech, King says, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”
1965: King, James Forman, and John Lewis lead marchers from Selma to Montgomery after a U.S. District judge upholds the right of demonstrators to conduct an orderly march.
“He touched at the very truth of who we are as human beings,” — former Oklahoma City Archbishop Eusebius Beltran, who participated in marches organized by King, tells The Okla homan reporter Carla Hinton in 2005. “The Gospel message tells us that we are all created by God in His image and likeness, and we are all equal, and therefore we have to learn to live and work together and cooperate. King exemplified that, and he effectively challenged others to do the same.”
On Aug. 12, King publicly opposes the Vietnam War at a rally at the Ninth Annual Convention of SCLC in Birmingham.
1966: On Jan. 26, King and his wife move into an apart ment at 1550 S Hamlin Ave. in Chicago to draw attention to the city’s poor housing conditions.
On Feb. 23, in Chicago, King meets Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.
1967: On April 4, King delivers “Beyond Vietnam” to a gathering of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Viet nam at Riverside Church in New York City. He demands that the U.S. take new initiatives to end the war, and becomes a target for more FBI investigations.
1968: On March 28, King leads a march of six thousand protesters in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. The march descends into violence and loot ing, and King is rushed from the scene.
On April 3, 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.” On April 4, King is shot in the neck and the lower right part of his face while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis. He dies less than an hour later in St. Joseph Hospital. King is 39 years old.
That night, hundreds of blacks in Oklahoma City gather at the Freedom Center, 2609 Eastern Avenue, which was later renamed after the civil rights icon.
The Daily Oklahoman reports: “Mrs. Clara Luper, chairman of the youth council of the NAACP in Okla homa City, and one of those in charge at the center, said the youth council would send a delegation to attend Dr. King’s funeral.
She said the council was calling on “all freedom lovers and mourners” to stay at home the day of the funeral and place a wreath on their door.
“Dr. King had been a good personal friend of mine since we participated in a march in Washington about 10 years ago,” said John White, president of the Okla homa Equal Opportunity Association. “He was a great American civil rights leader and his tragic death is a shameful act here in our nation. Thousands of Oklaho mans will miss Dr. King.”