I tried to love and serve humanity
tippi Summer Project, a voter-registration drive organized and run by black
black and white students.
J u n o 21. James Chaney (b lack) and Andrew Goodm an and Michael
Schwerner (white), three civil rights workers, are reported missing after a
short trip to Philadelphia, Mississippi
M ay-Jun o . Dr. King is jailed for demonstrating, along with other SCLC
workers, for the integration o f public accomodations in St. Augustine,
Florida.
Juno. D r. King’s book, B'Ay
Row.
July 10. Dr. King launches a drive to make Chicago an "open city" in re
gard to housing.
Auguat 8. Dr. King leads a march through a crowd of angry whites in C hi
cago’s Southwest side. The crowd stones him.
1967
January. Dr. King writes Where Do We Go from Here? while in Jamaica.
C a n ’t W ait is published by Harper A
July 2. Dr. King attends the signing o f the Public Accommodations Bill,
part of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the
White House.
July 18 23 Riots occur in Harlem. One black man is killed.
A u g u a t 4. The bodies o f civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman and
Schwerner are found by FBI agents buried near Philadelphia, Miss. Nesho
ba County Sheriff Rainey and his deputy, Cevil Price, are allegedly im pli
cated in the murders.
M arch 12. Dr. King attacks the government’s Vietnam policy in a speech at
the Chicago Coliseum.
April 4. King addressed a peace rally at New York City’s Riverside Church.
Spring 1887. King was asked to be a peace candidate for the Presidency but
declined.
April 18. King was one of the leaders of the Spring Mobilization Against the
War in Vietnam, leading a march of 125,000 from N .Y .’s Central Park to
th eU .N . Plaza.
Auguat. Riots occur in New Jersey, Illinois and Pennsylvania.
Septem ber 18. Dr. King has an audience with Pope Paul VI at the Vatican.
Septem ber. Dr. King and Revcrened Ralph Abernathy visit West Berlin at
the invitation of Mayor Willy Brandt.
Decem ber 10. Dr. Kina receives the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway.
1965
February 21 Malcolm X . leader o f the Organization of Afro-American
Unity and former Black Muslim leader, is murdered by blacks in New York
City.
M arch 7. A group of marching demonstrators from SNCC and SCLC led
by SCLC’s Hosea Williams are beaten when they attempt to march across
the Edmund Pettus Bridge on their planned march to Montgomery, Ala ,
from Selma, by state highway patrolmen under the direction of Al Lingo,
and sheriff’s depulites under the leadership of Jim Clark An order by Gov.
Wallace had prohibited the march.
M arch 9. James Recb, Unitarian Minister, is beaten by four white segrega
tionists in Selma and dies two days later.
M arch 15. President Johnson addresses the nation and Congress. He de
scribes the Voting Rights Bill he will submit to Congress in two days and
uses the slogan of the civil rights movement, "W e Shall Overcome.”
M arch 18. Black and white demonstrators are beaien by sheriff’s deputies
and police on horseback in Montgomery.
Young Dr. King studios Gandhi's philosophy of non violones.
Novem ber 22. President Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, Tesas
1964
M arch 25 The Supreme Court rules poll taxes unconstitutional
M arch. Dr. King lakes over a Chicago slum building and is sued by its own
er.
Spring. The Alabama primary is held, the first time since Reconstruction
that blacks have voted in any numbers.
M a y 16. An antiwar statement by Dr. King is read at a large Washington
rally to protest the war in Vietnam. Dr. King agrees to serve as co-chairman
of Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam.
June 6. James Meredith is shot soon after beginning his 220-milc "March
Against Fear" from Memphis, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi.
Sum m er. C’OFO (Council of Federated Organizations) initiates the Missis-
July 12-17. In riots in Newark, N .J ., 23 die, 725 are injured.
July 20. Operation Breadbasket, an SCLC’ program based in Chicago and
directed by Jesse Jackson, was expanded nationwide. In one year the pro
ject had secured 2,200 jobs, aided black business, forced the state to do bus
iness with black companies and conducted a successful 6 month rent strike.
July 23-30. In the Detroit riots— the worst of the century, 43 die, 324 are in
jured.
July 26. Black leaders 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 na
tion.”
O ctob er 30 The Supreme Court upholds the contempt-of-courl convic
tions of Dr King and seven other black leaders who led 1963 marches in
Birmingham. Dr. King and his aides enter jail to serve four-day sentenc
es.
Novem ber 27. Dr. King announces the formation by SCLC of a Poor Peo
ple’s Campaign, with the aim of representing the problems of poor blacks
and whiles.
1968
M a rc h 2 1 2 5 Over three thousand protest marchers lease Selma for a
mwicii iu Msruiguiiiciy, protected bxjcocjai uoops. I iiey ate joined along
the way by a total of 25,000 marchers. Upon reaching the capilol building
they hear an daddress by Dr. King
February 5. 1968 King went (o Arlingfon CeThetry with 2,000 people to
hold memorial services for Vietnam war dead.
M arch 25 Mrs. Viola 1 iuzzo , wife of a Detroit Teamsters Union business
agent, is shot and killed while drising a carload ol marchers back to Selma
Feb 6. 1968 King addressed a rally in Washington, D .C ., reaffirming twin
struggles for peace and for racial justice.
Ju ly. D r King visits Chicago. SCI C joins with the Coordinating Coun
cil of Community Organizations led by Al Rabv, in the Chicago Project.
Spring. Dr King makes a lour of Alabama to help elect black candidates.
M ay 30. King travelled to Geneva, Switzerland, to speak against the “ cost
ly, bloody and futile w ar."
July 12. King visited Cleveland and promised to help Carl Stokes campaign
for Mayor.
A u g u a t-D e c e m b e r. In Alabama, SCI (. spearheads voter registration
campaigns in Greene, W ilcox, and Eutaw counties, and in the cities of
Montgomery and Birmingham
Auguat 6. I he 1965 Voting Rights Act is signed by President Johnson.
Auguat 11 16 In Watts, the black ghetto of I os Angeles, riots leave thirty-
five dead, of whom 28 are black
June. Stokely C armichael and W illie Ricks (SNCC) use the slogan "Black
Power" in public for the first time, before reporters in Greenwood. Missis
sippi
February 12. Sanitation workers strike in Memphis. Tennessee
M a rc h 28 Dr King leads six thousand protesters on a march through
downtown Memphis in support of striking sanitation workers. Disorders
break during which black youths loot stores One sixteen year-old is kille .
fifty persons are injured.
April 3. Dr King's last speech, entitled " I'v e Been to the Mountaintop," is
delivered at the Memphis Masonic Tample.
April 4. Dr King is assassinated by a sniper as he stands talking on the bal
cony of his second-floor room at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis He dies i . i
St. Joseph's Hospital from a gunshot wound in the neck James Earl Ray i
later captured and convicted of the murder.
"A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and
justice of many of our past and present policies. A true revolution of values will
soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast between poverty and wealth. With
righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of
the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America only
to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the
countries, and say, 'This is not ju s t!'"
-1 9 6 8
Albina Ministerial Alliance