January 29: A dinner honoring Martin Luther King, Jr. for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize is held at the Dinkler Hotel with 1500 integrated guests in attendance.

The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) begins working with residents of depressed areas of Vine City and other inner city neighborhoods to improve their communities.

The 1965 Voting Rights Act is passed.

After Malcolm X is assassinated in New York City in February, SNCC leader John Lewis says Malcolm had been able, more than any other, “to articulate the aspirations, bitterness, and frustrations of the Negro people.” Malcolm X had called SNCC his favorite civil rights organization and had talked with that organization’s leaders about working together to forge closer ties with those involved in liberation struggles in Africa.

Eleven African Americans successfully run for seats in the Georgia Legislature. Julian Bond, Grace Towns Hamilton, Ben Brown, William Alexander, Julius Daughtery, Horace Ward, and Leroy Johnson are elected after reapportionment raises the number of districts in Fulton County from one to seven.

The A. Philip Randolph Institute (APRI) is established by civil rights and labor activists Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph. APRI is created to spearhead the "Black-Labor Alliance," and begins to build black community support for the trade union movement and convey to labor the needs and concerns of black Americans.