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   From: rkoch@banmlkday.com   
      
   Most of this information comes from articles collected in   
   Theodore Pappas' book The Martin Luther King Jr. Plagiarism   
   Story (Rockford Institute, Rockford, IL, 1994). I am grateful to   
   the Institute for providing a copy of this out-of-print work.   
      
   1984   
      
   The Martin Luther King Papers Project is formed   
   1986   
      
   David Garrow, in Bearing the Cross, relates how Ira Zepp, in an   
   unpublished study, found that sections of King's Stride Towards   
   Freedom are verbatim identical to passages from Paul Ramsay's   
   Basic Christian Ethics and Anders Nygren's Eros and Agape.   
   Garrow refrains from using the 'p' word, and his index calls the   
   incident 'ghostwriting'   
   1986   
      
   The King Papers Project receives the first of its over $500,000   
   of NEH funding   
   Late 1987   
      
   The King Papers project first discovers evidence of King's   
   plagiarism.   
   October 1989   
      
   According to Waldman, King's plagiarism was discussed in the   
   presence of his widow, Coretta Scott King, in an all-day meeting   
   in Atlanta. Mrs. King remained silent through most of the   
   meeting, and has since declined to answer queries about her   
   husband's plagiarism. The board decides to publish King's papers   
   with footnotes fully detailing the plagiarism, and to separately   
   publish an article outlining its extent.   
   December 3, 1989   
      
   Frank Johnson, in the British Sunday Telegraph , reveals that   
   Ralph Luker, associate editor of the King Papers Project, has   
   informed him that King had borrowed heavily from the thesis of   
   Jack Boozer, fellow Boston University theology student and later   
   Professor of Religion at Emory. Luker temporizes, promising that   
   full facts will be available in nine months. Claiborne Carson,   
   director of the Project, says when asked about the charge of   
   plagiarism "It's really not true...what we're talking about is   
   the question of whether there was an adequate citation of all   
   sources".   
   Major American newspapers totally ignore the article.   
      
   January 22, 1990   
      
   The Liberty Lobby's The Spotlight prints a front-page story on   
   King's plagiarized thesis, based on the Sunday Telegraph column.   
   March 1 1990   
      
   According to Babington, King's plagiarism is widely discussed at   
   the Southern Intellectual History Circle, meeting at Chapel   
   Hill. Luker, who attended, says the story was 'academic cocktail-   
   party gossip' at the time. UNC sociologist John Shelton Reed   
   hears the story, and cites it in a gossip column for Chronicles   
   , the magazine of the Rockford Institute. He later balks at   
   publishing after receiving a stern letter from B.U. acting   
   president Jon Westling.   
   'early 1990'   
      
   According to Babington, Carson's team informs the National   
   Endowment for the Humanities of the plagiarism. NEH decides not   
   to divulge the information.   
   Spring 1990   
      
   Washington Post reporter Dan Balz approaches Carson with   
   questions about the plagiarism, but is misled by Carson, who   
   admits he tried to 'play it down'.   
   June 1990   
      
   According to Waldman, Carson submitted an article to Journal of   
   American History, but it was rejected because Carson was   
   unwilling to 'take a firm stand' on the question of whether   
   King's thesis was plagiarized.   
   September 1990   
      
   Thomas Fleming writes in the conservative magazine Chronicles   
   that King's doctorate should be regarded as a courtesy title,   
   since it had been recently revealed that he had plagiarized his   
   dissertation.   
   October 5 1990   
      
   Boston University President Jon Westling sends a letter to   
   Chronicles (published in the January 1991 issue) denying   
   Fleming's charge. Westling, in an apparent bare-faced lie, says   
   that King's dissertation has been 'scrupulously examined and   
   reexamined by scholars', and that 'not a single instance of   
   plagiarism of any sort has been identified....not a single   
   reader has ever found any nonattributed or misattributed   
   quotations, misleading paraphrases, or thoughts borrowed without   
   due scholarly reference in any of its 343 pages'.   
   Fall 1990   
      
   Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Waldman calls Carson. Carson   
   tries stonewalling him, but Waldman informs Carson he has a copy   
   of Jack Boozer's dissertation, from which King stole heavily.   
   Carson decides the game is up, and agrees to cooperate with   
   Waldman in breaking the story.   
   November 9, 1990   
      
   Peter Waldman, on the front page of the Wall Street Journal,   
   'breaks' the story in the American mass media. The article   
   quotes Claiborne Carson finally admitting King's plagiarism. The   
      
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