Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was founded in 1957 after the Montgomery County Bus System boycott. Black churches and ministers organized, with Martin Luther King, Jr. being their first president. As a backbone of the civil rights movement in the US during the 1950's and 1960's, it inspired nonviolent direct actions and protests.

SCLC believed that nonviolent civil disobedience could help to end segregation and bring about social justice for blacks. King's charismatic personality dominated SCLC, but other activists also contributed to its success. They included: Ralph Abernathy (King's closest associate and who was frequently jailed for acts of civil disobedience), Ella Baker (promoter of community-based civil rights activism in the South), Andrew Young (became U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and mayor of Atlanta) and Jesse Jackson (well-known civil rights activist in the 1970s and 1980s).

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]

Letter from a Birmingham Jail

In January of 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., went to Birmingham, Alabama. The SCLC wanted to protest the segregation of public facilities and the hiring practices. Originally, King had no plans to march, only to give a speech.

The following day after his speech, he ended up in jail with 250 other protesters. The plan was to fill the jails to the brim until they desegregated the entire city. Prior to the march, however, Sheriff Laurie Pritchett had already negotiated with area police departments to give them assistance. When the arrests began, most of the protesters were taken to jails outside the city. Thus, there was still plenty of room for more prisoners. Albany had been a disaster. Local officials negotiated with King and other leaders and indicated that they would begin to desegregate the city. As soon as King and the reporters left, city official resorted to their same policies of segregation.

During the Albany march, the police did their best to hide police brutality. In Birmingham, the violence perpetrated by law enforcers was quite amazing. Prior to the start of the march, King was arrested for violating an order not to march. While in prison, he wrote his famous response "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

[TABLE OF CONTENTS]