Throughout the years of his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement, Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made several trips to Durham and gave six public speeches. King’s powerful advocacy of nonviolent collective action inspired many of Durham’s equal rights activists to occupy segregated spaces, and to promote black political action and the improvement of conditions for the impoverished.

1953Rencher N. Harris, businessman and civil rights activist, was elected as the first African American to serve on Durham’s City Council.

1955The Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott sparked by the arrests of Claudette Colvin, Mary Louise Smith, and Rosa Parks showed the power of collective organizing by local African Americans. King was elected as president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and the movement’s successful integration of the bus system in 1956 led to his national recognition.

Click here to listen an interview with Representative Mickey Michaux on his relationship with Dr. King (Links to the Museum of Durham History YouYube channel).

1957On June 23, the Reverend Douglas Moore, a classmate of King at Boston University School of Theology, led six young African Americans in a sit-in at the segregated Royal Ice Cream Parlor. That year, the Durham Bulls baseball team saw their first black players and demonstrators attempted to integrate seating at the Durham Athletic Park for opening night. At Duke University, the first black students were admitted to a summer teaching program.

1957Recognizing the importance of collective power during the Montgomery bus boycott, King and sixty civil rights leaders met in Atlanta, Georgia to form the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). The organization was dedicated to ending legalized segregation and the disenfranchisement of African Americans through peaceful action. King was elected as the SCLC’s first president.

1960A series of nonviolent protests, called sit-ins, kicked off on February 1st at the Woolworth’s department store lunch counter in Greensboro. The protest was organized and led by four students from North Carolina A&T, who were inspired by King’s success with nonviolent protest. The sit-in revitalized the civil rights movement as it emboldened black college students to stage sit-ins in dozens of southern towns and cities.

1962On August 12th, a crowd estimated at 500 gathered at the segregated Howard Johnson Restaurant for a demonstration; the protests continued for nearly a year with activists meeting at the restaurant every Sunday.

1963After a month of massive demonstrations in favor of integrating public facilities, newly elected Mayor Wensell “Wense” Grabarek formed the Durham Interim Committee on Race Relations. By the end of the year, civil rights protests and boycotts had forced most Durham restaurants, hotels, swimming pools, movie theaters, and libraries to integrate.

1963On August 28, 1963, King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The demonstration, attended by an estimated 250,000 people, including several buses filled with Durham activists, was organized to support federal Civil Rights legislation being debated in Congress. Durham’s Floyd McKissick, Chairman of the Congress of Racial Equity (CORE), was a key organizer of the march.

1964Originally proposed by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, the Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964. The act outlawed segregation in public facilities, added enforcement mechanisms to speed up school desegregation, and banned both racial and gender discrimination in employment. King stood behind President Johnson as he signed the bill into law.

Click here to listen an interview with Representative Mickey Michaux about getting involved in politics with encouragement from Dr. King (Links to the Museum of Durham History YouYube channel).

1965President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law to prohibit the racial discrimination that African Americans across the south faced at the polls. The signing of the act came on the heels of the Selma-Montgomery voting rights marches led by King and other Civil Rights leaders. Johnson hastened the signing after police brutally attacked peaceful African American demonstrators in Alabama. King and Rosa Parks attended the signing.

1965Durham County Schools began to desegregate after the passage of the Civil Rights Act; full integration of the city and county school system was not realized until 1970.

1967Asa Spaulding, president of the North Carolina Mutual Life Insurance Company, was elected as the first African American Durham County Commissioner.

1968King was scheduled to visit Durham in early April of 1968 as part of a campaign to promote African American candidates in an upcoming election. However, he cancelled the trip and headed to Memphis, Tennessee where sanitation workers had been striking for better pay and safe working conditions.

On April 4, King was shot at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis by James Earl Ray; he later died at St. Joseph Hospital.

Click here for an interview with Bob Ashley about the Duke University response to Dr. King’s assassination (Links to the Museum of Durham History YouYube channel).

Click herehere for an interview with Bob Ashley about the Duke University Silent Vigil (Links to the Muse-um of Durham History YouYube channel).

Click here for an interview with retired Mayor Bill Bell about the Downtown Durham demonstrations following Dr. King’s assassinaiton (Links to the Museum of Durham History YouYube channel).