Most government offices and schools as well as banks were closed Monday across the state as Texas observed the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday.

An estimated 20,000 people attended an MLK parade Monday in Austin.

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets of San Antonio for the Alalmo City’s annual MLK day parade, which is one of the largest in the U.S.

As many as 70,000 people were expected to join the three mile march.

In Washington, D.C., President Bush joined in observances Monday marking the birthday of a man Mr. Bush called a "visionary
American."

Mr. Bush said King "believed deeply in liberty and dignity for every person."

In his proclamation of the King holiday, Mr. Bush said the slain
civil rights leader's "charismatic leadership awakened the
conscience of America."

In the decades since King's death, the President said, the nation has
accomplished much in its "journey toward justice," but he added
that the journey "has not been an easy one, and it is not over."

LOCAL EVENTS:

Waco:

Martin Luther King, Jr. Youth Peace March begins at 10 a.m. Monday at Heritage Square.
A program and wreath-laying will follow at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park.
Lunch will follow at the Bledsoe-Miller Recreation Center.

Providence Healthcare Network hosts its 20th annual MLK observance at 2 p.m. Monday in the Providence Pavilion Auditorium.

Waco’s annual MLK Candlelight Vigil will be held from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. Monday at MLK Park

The Baylor University Association of Black Students hosts a Martin Luther King Celebration at 7 p.m. Monday in Miller Chapel of Tidwell Bible Building. The observance is open to the public.

Killeen:

The Killeen NAACP Youth Council and the CTC Chapter of the NCAAP lead off an annual march, which begins at 10 a.m. in front of Killeen City Hall.

The annual MLK Day Program will be held at 12:30 p.m. Monday at the Killeen Community Center. Rev. David G. Reynolds will be the guest speaker.

Copperas Cove:

A march begins at 1 p.m. Monday at the First Step Child Care Center at 1402 S. FM 116 to the Bible Way Missionary Baptist Church at 2306 S. FM 116 where a community-wide program in celebration of King’s life begins at 2 p.m.

Bryan:

Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. hosts its 9th annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Freedom March, which begins at 10 a.m. Monday at Sadie Thomas Park and ends at Kemp Elementary School.

CLOSURES:

Fort Hood personnel will observe the holiday Monday and most activities on post will be closed during the day.

Classes will not be held Monday at Baylor University, which will be closed in observance of the Holiday, but the McLane Student Life Center will be open from 1 p.m. to midnight Monday; the Mayborn Museum Complex will operate on its regular hours and the Baylor Bookstore will be open from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Central Texas College campuses will be closed on Monday as will the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton

The Waco solid waste department will not collect trash on Monday, but will pick up Monday’s routes on Wednesday.

Click Here For More Information On Martin Luther King, Jr.

Click Here For The King Center Web Site

Click Here For Information About The Martin Luther King, Jr. National Historic Site

MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR, TIMELINE
(Source: The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project, Stanford University”
Click Here For The Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project Web Site

Jan. 15, 1929

Michael King, later known as Martin Luther King, Jr., is born at 501 Auburn Ave. in Atlanta, Georgia.

Summer 1941

The King family -- Martin Luther King, Sr. (Daddy King), Alberta Williams King, Willie Christine King, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Alfred Daniel Williams King (known as A. D. King) -- moves from 501 Auburn Avenue to 193 Boulevard in Atlanta.

Sept. 20, 1944

King begins his freshman year at Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Aug. 6, 1946

The Atlanta Constitution publishes King's letter to the editor stating that black people "are entitled to the basic rights and opportunities of American citizens."

January-February, 1947

King's article, "The Purpose of Education" is published in the Morehouse student paper, the Maroon Tiger.

Feb. 25, 1948

King is ordained and appointed assistant pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta.

June 8, 1948

King receives his bachelor of arts degree in sociology from Morehouse College.

Sept. 14, 1948

King begins his studies at Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania.

May 6-8, 1951

King graduates from Crozer with a bachelor of divinity degree, delivering the valedictory address at commencement.

Sept. 13, 1951

King begins his graduate studies in systematic theology at Boston University.

June 18, 1953

King and Coretta Scott are married at the Scott home near Marion, Alabama.

Sept. 1, 1954

King begins his pastorate at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama.

June 5, 1955

King is awarded his doctorate in systematic theology from Boston University.

Nov, 17, 1955

Yolanda Denise King, the Kings' first child, is born.

Dec. 1, 1955

Rosa Parks is arrested for refusing to vacate her seat and move to the rear of a city bus in Montgomery to make way for a white passenger. Jo Ann Robinson and other Women's Political Council members mimeograph thousands of leaflets calling for a one-day boycott of the city's buses on Monday, 5 December.

Dec. 5, 1955

At a mass meeting at Holt Street Baptist Church, the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) is formed. King becomes its president.

Jan 27, 1956

According to King's later account in Stride Toward Freedom, he receives a threatening phone call late in the evening, prompting a spiritual revelation that fills him with strength to carry on in spite of persecution.

Jan. 30, 1956

At 9:15 p.m., while King speaks at a mass meeting, his home is bombed. His wife and daughter are not injured. Later King addresses an angry crowd that gathers outside the house, pleading for nonviolence.

Nov, 13, 1956

The U.S. Supreme Court affirms the lower court opinion in Browder v. Gayle declaring Montgomery and Alabama bus segregation laws unconstitutional.

Dec. 21, 1956

Montgomery City Lines resumes full service on all routes. King is among the first passengers to ride the buses in an integrated fashion.

Jan. 10-11, 1957

Southern black ministers meet in Atlanta to share strategies in the fight against segregation. King is named chairman of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration (later known as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, SCLC).

Feb. 18, 1957

King appears on the cover of Time magazine.

Mar. 6, 1957

King attends the independence celebrations of the new nation of Ghana in West Africa and meets with Prime Minister Kwame Nkrumah.

May 17, 1957

At the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., King delivers his first national address, "Give Us The Ballot," at the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom.

June 13, 1957

King and Ralph D. Abernathy meet with Vice President Richard M. Nixon and issue a statement on their meeting.

Oct. 23, 1957

Coretta King gives birth to their second child, Martin, III.

June 13, 1958

King and other civil rights leaders meet with President Dwight D. Eisenhower in Washington.

Sept. 17, 1958

King's first book Stride Toward Freedom: The Montgomery Story is published.

Sept. 20 1958

During a book signing at Blumstein's Department Store in Harlem, New York, King is stabbed by Izola Ware Curry. He is rushed to Harlem Hospital where a team of doctors successfully remove a seven-inch letter opener from his chest.

Feb. 3, 1959

King embarks on a month-long visit to India where he meets with Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and many of Gandhi's followers.

Feb. 1, 1960

King moves from Montgomery to Atlanta to devote more time to SCLC and the freedom struggle. He becomes assistant pastor to his father at Ebenezer Baptist Church.

May 25-28, 1960

King is found not guilty of tax fraud by a white jury in Montgomery.

June 23, 1960

King meets privately in New York with Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kennedy.

Oct. 19, 1960

King is arrested during a sit-in demonstration at Rich's department store in Atlanta. He is sentenced to four months hard labor for violating a suspended sentence he received for a 1956 traffic violation. He is released on $2000 bond on 27 October .

Jan. 31, 1961

Dexter Scott, King's third child, is born

May 21, 1961

After the initial group of Freedom Riders seeking to integrate bus terminals are assaulted in Alabama, King addresses a mass rally at a mob-besieged Montgomery church.

Oct. 16, 1961

King meets with President John F. Kennedy and urges him to issue a second Emancipation Proclamation to eliminate racial segregation.

Dec. 16, 1961

King, Ralph Abernathy and 264 other protesters are arrested during a campaign in Albany, Georgia.

Sept. 28, 1962

During the closing session of the SCLC conference in Birmingham, Alabama, a member of the American Nazi Party assaults King, striking him twice in the face.

Mar. 28, 1963

Bernice Albertine, King's fourth child, is born.

April 16, 1963

Responding to eight Jewish and Christian clergymen's advice that African Americans wait patiently for justice, King pens his "Letter from Birmingham Jail." King and Abernathy were arrested on 12 April and released on 19 April.

May 7, 1963

Conflict in Birmingham reaches its peak when high-pressure fire hoses force demonstrators from the business district. In addition to hoses, Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor employs dogs, clubs, and cattle prods to disperse four thousand demonstrators in downtown Birmingham.

Aug 28, 1963

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom attracts more than two hundred thousand demonstrators to the Lincoln Memorial. Organized by A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin, the march is supported by all major civil rights organizations as well as by many labor and religious groups. King delivers his "I Have a Dream" speech.
After the march, King and other civil rights leaders meet with President John F. Kennedy and Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson in the White House.

Sept. 18, 1963

King delivers the eulogy at the funerals of Addie Mae Collins, Carol Denise McNair, and Cynthia Dianne Wesley, three of the four children that were killed during the 15 September bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church in Birmingham. Carole Robertson, the fourth victim, was buried in a separate ceremony.

Oct. 10, 1963

U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy authorizes the FBI to wiretap King's home phone.

Jan 18, 1964

President Lyndon B. Johnson meets with King, Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and James Farmer and seeks support for his War on Poverty initiative.

Mar. 26, 1964

King meets Malcolm X in Washington, D.C. for the first and only time

June, 1964

King's book Why We Can't Wait is published.

June 11, 1964

King is arrested and jailed for demanding service at a white-only restaurant in St. Augustine, Florida.

Nov. 18, 1964

After 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 states that SCLC is "spearheaded by Communists and moral degenerates."

Dec. 1, 1964

King meets with FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover at the Justice Department.

Dec. 10, 1964

King receives the Nobel Peace Prize at a ceremony in Oslo, Norway. He declares that "every penny" of the $54,000 award will be used in the ongoing civil rights struggle.

Mar. 7, 1965

In an event that will become known as "Bloody Sunday," voting rights marchers are beaten at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama as they attempt to march to Montgomery.

Mar. 17-25, 1965

King, James Forman, and John Lewis lead civil rights marchers from Selma to Montgomery after a U.S. District judge upholds the right of demonstrators to conduct an orderly march.

Aug. 12, 1965

King publicly opposes the Vietnam War at a mass rally at the Ninth Annual Convention of SCLC in Birmingham.

Jan. 26, 1966

King and his wife move into an apartment at 1550 South Hamlin Avenue in Chicago to draw attention to the city's poor housing conditions.

Feb. 23, 1966

In Chicago, King meets Nation of Islam leader Elijah Muhammad.

June, 7, 1966

King, Floyd McKissick of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and Stokely Carmichael of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) resume James Meredith's "March Against Fear" from Memphis to Jackson, Mississippi, after Meredith was shot and wounded near Memphis.

Apri 4, 1967

King delivers "Beyond Vietnam" to a gathering of Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam at Riverside Church in New York City. He demands that the U.S.A. take new initiatives to end the war.

June 1967

King's book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? is published.

Mar. 28, 1968

King leads a march of six thousand protesters in support of striking sanitation workers in Memphis. The march descends into violence and looting, and King is rushed from the scene.

April 3, 1968

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."

April 4, 1968

King is shot and killed while standing on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis.

April 9, 1968

King is buried in Atlanta.