While King is promoting his book in a Harlem book store, an African American woman stabs him. King visits India. He had a lifelong admiration for Mohandas K. Gandhi, and credited Gandhi's passive resistance techniques for his civil-rights successes. King leaves for Atlanta to pastor his father's church, Ebenezer Baptist Church. King meets with President John F. Kennedy to urge support for civil rights.
King leads protests in Birmingham for desegregated department store facilities, and fair hiring.
This eloquent letter, later widely circulated, became a classic of the civil-rights movement. 250,000 civil-rights supporters attended the March on Washington. King wins Nobel Peace Prize. 1965 January 18. King successfully registers to vote at the Hotel Albert in Selma, Ala. and is assaulted by James George Robinson of Birmingham.