In 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 and he met with President Dwight D. Eisenhower, along with Roy Wilkins, A. Philip Randolph, and Lester Grange on problems affecting black Americans. Then in 1959 he visited India to study Mohandas Gandhi's philosophy of nonviolence. He resigned from pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church to concentrate on civil rights full time and he moved to Atlanta to direct the activities of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In 1960 he then became copastor with his father at the Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia. Lunch counter sit-ins began in Greensboro, North Carolina. And in Atlanta, King was arrested during a sit-in waiting to be served at a restaurant. He was sentenced to four months in jail, but after intervention by John Kennedy and , he was released. Also in 1960 the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee founded to coordinate protests at , Raleigh, North Carolina.
In November 1961, the Interstate Commerce Commission banned segregation in interstate travel due to work of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Freedom Riders and 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. During the unsuccessful Albany, Georgia movement, King is arrested on July 27 1962 and jailed. On Good Friday, April 12 1963, King is arrested with Ralph Abernathy by Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor for demonstrating without a permit and on April 13, the Birmingham campaign is launched. This would prove to be the turning point in the war to end desegregation in the South. During the eleven days he spent in jail, MLK writes his famous .On May 10 1963, the Birmingham agreement is announced. The stores, restaurants, and schools will be desegregated, hiring of blacks implemented, and charges dropped and on June 23, MLK leads 125,000 people on a Freedom Walk in Detroit. The March on Washington held August 28 1963 is the largest civil rights demonstration in history with nearly 250,000 people in attendance. At the march, King made his famous I Have a Dream speech and on November 22,
On January 3 1964, King appears on the cover of Time magazine as its Man of the Year.
King attends the signing ceremony of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 at the White House on July 2 and during the summer, King experiences his first hurtful rejection by black people when he is stoned by Black Muslims in Harlem. Also in 1964 King is awarded the on December 10. Dr. King is the youngest person to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for Peace at age 35. On February 2 1965, King was arrested in Selma, Alabama during a voting rights demonstration and after signs the Voting Rights Act into law, Martin Luther King, Jr. turns to socioeconomic problems. On January 22 1966, King moved into a Chicago slum tenement to attract attention to the living conditions of the poor. And in June, King and others began the March Against Fear through the South and July 10, King initiates a campaign to end discrimination in housing, employment, and schools in Chicago.
The upholds a conviction of MLK by a Birmingham court for demonstrating without a permit. King spends four days in Birmingham jail and on November 27 1967, King announces the inception of the Poor People's Campaign focusing on jobs and freedom for the poor of all races. In 1968 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. Dr. King marches in support of sanitation workers on strike in Memphis, Tennessee. On March 28, King lead a march that turns violent. This was the first time one of his events had turned violent. At sunset on April 4 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. is fatally shot while standing on the balcony of the in Memphis, Tennessee. There are riots and disturbances in 130 American cities. There were twenty thousand arrests. King's funeral was then on April 19 is an international event. Within a week of the assassination, the Open Housing Act is passed by Congress. On November 2 1986, a is proclaimed in King's honor.
