Date in year · 1963 · The 1960s

April 16, 1963

On April 16, 1963, u.S. civil rights campaigner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. writes his open letter from Birmingham Jail, sometimes known as "The Negro Is Your Brother", while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, for protesting against segregation. The year's #1 song was "Surfin' U.S.A." by The Beach Boys. Garry Kasparov, Conan O'Brien, Rachel Whiteread would arrive in the same year.

Events

1

Births

0

Deaths

0

Year

1963

1960s

Around 1963

The year in brief

1963 (MCMLXIII) was a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar, the 1963rd year of the Common Era (CE) and Anno Domini (AD) designations, the 963rd year of the 2nd millennium, the 63rd year of the 20th century, and the 4th year of the 1960s decade.

Read the full year of 1963 →

What happened

On April 16, 1963

  1. 1963 U.S. civil rights campaigner Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. writes his open letter from Birmingham Jail, sometimes known as "The Negro Is Your Brother", while incarcerated in Birmingham, Alabama, for protesting against segregation.

    American minister and civil rights activist (1929–1968)

    Martin Luther King Jr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister who was a prominent leader of the civil rights movement from 1955 until his assassination in 1968. He advanced civil rights for people of color in the United States through the use of nonviolent resistance and civil disobedience against Jim Crow laws and other forms of legalized discrimination, which most commonly affected African Americans.

Elsewhere that year

Other moments from 1963

The class of 1963

Others born in 1963

Garry Kasparov 1963– Russian chess player and author
Conan O'Brien 1963– American television host, comedian, and writer
Rachel Whiteread 1963– English sculptor
Ken Caminiti 1963– American baseball player (died 2004)
Rosalind Gill 1963– English sociologist and academic
Sean Lock 1963– English comedian and actor (died 2021)

Step through

Nearby

Keep going

More to explore