Civil rights leader Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., president of the Southern Christian Baptist Leadership Conference (SCLC), displays the poster to be used during his Poor People's Campaign this spring and summer, March 4, 1968. King said today in Atlanta that the campaign would begin April 22. (AP Photo/Horace Cort)
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On February 14, 1957, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established at a meeting in New Orleans after the end of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. served as president of the civil rights organization, initially called the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration, until his death in 1968.
Dr. Joseph Lowery, President Southern Christian Leadership Conference, details plans for this Saturday?s march marking the 25th anniversary of the 1963 civil rights march in Washington, August 25, 1988. (AP Photo/Barry Thumma)Marchers lead the way to the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala., during the 47th recreation of “Bloody Sunday” civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery on Sunday, March 4, 2012. (AP Photo/Dave Martin)Ralph David Abernathy, President of the SCLC outside the SCLC building in Atlanta, Georgia in February 1970. (AP Photo)
SCLC’s first major campaign centered on voting rights. Titled the “Crusade for Citizenship,” the goal was to register thousands of disenfranchised voters throughout the South so they could cast ballots in upcoming elections in 1958 and 1960. Through voter education clinics, it raised awareness among African Americans about the importance of the vote.
SCLC is credited with helping to lay the groundwork for the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Clay Cane is an award-winning journalist, writer, radio host, and political commentator. A graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in African-American Studies, his work on race, culture, and politics have appeared in national publications, including the Washington Post, CNN, and The Grio. Clay is a regular political commentator on MSNBC.
