Between 1958 and 1965, the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., appeared at Orchestra Hall on seven occasions, all presented under the auspices of the Sunday Evening Club.

  • January 12, 1958
  • April 19, 1959
  • February 21, 1960
  • January 29, 1961
  • April 15, 1962
  • January 27, 1963
  • March 14, 1965

During his final appearance, King addressed a capacity crowd at Orchestra Hall (several hundred people had to be turned away at the door) in the aftermath of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama, in which citizens marching for African American voting rights were brutally assaulted by heavily armed state troopers, in full view of photographers and journalists. King told the audience that “white and black men alike must learn to live together or they will perish together as fools.”

The next week, King returned to Selma, leading thousands in a march to the state capitol of Montgomery, contributing to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.