Southern Christian Leadership Conference 430598 223849270 2008-07-06T03:42:11Z Plasticup 2666389 clean up, Replaced: January 2nd → [[January 2]] using [[Project:AutoWikiBrowser|AWB]] {{Refimprove|date=February 2008}} {{infobox Organization | name = Southern Christian Leadership Conference | image = SCLC.gif | image_border = | size = 180px | abbreviation = SCLC | motto = | formation = [[10 January]] [[1957]] | type = [[NGO]] | status = | purpose = [[Civil rights]] | headquarters = [[Atlanta, Georgia]] | location = | region_served = [[United States]] | membership = | leader_title = President/CEO | leader_name = [[Charles Kenzie Steele, Jr.]] | main_organ = | key_people = Raleigh&nbsp;Trammell,&nbsp;Chairman | affiliations = 17 affiliates; 57 chapters | num_staff = | num_volunteers = | budget = | website = [http://www.sclcnational.org www.SCLCNational.org] | remarks = }} The '''Southern Christian Leadership Conference''' ('''SCLC''') is an [[United States|American]] [[civil rights]] organization. SCLC was closely associated with its first president, [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] The SCLC had a large role in the American [[African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)|Civil Rights Movement]].<ref>{{citation | last = King Research & Education Institute at Stanford Univ. | title = Southern Christian Leadership Conference | url = http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/enc_SCLC.htm}}</ref> ==Origins== [[Image:Martin-Luther-King-1964-leaning-on-a-lectern.jpg|thumb|left|150px|[[Martin Luther King, Jr.]], the first president of SCLC.]] The origins of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference lie in the [[Montgomery Bus Boycott]] that began after [[Rosa Parks]] was arrested for refusing to give her bus seat to a white man. The bus boycott, which lasted from [[December 5]], [[1955]], to [[December 20]], [[1956]], brought together two [[Montgomery, Alabama|Montgomery]] ministers: [[Ralph David Abernathy]] and [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]], as well as other Montgomery civil rights activists, and supporters from across the [[Southern United States|South]]. As campaigns to [[desegregation|desegregate]] buses began to spread in the South, a group of 60 activists met in Ebenezer Church in [[Atlanta, Georgia|Atlanta]], [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], on January 1957 to discuss the use of [[nonviolent resistance]] as the guiding principle for such movements. In addition to King and Abernathy, the conference attracted such civil rights activists as [[Ella Baker]], [[T. J. Jemison]], [[Stanley Levison]], [[Joseph Lowery]], [[Bayard Rustin]], [[Fred Shuttlesworth]], [[Charles Kenzie Steele|C. K. Steele]], and others. At the meeting, the group established the Negro Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration, which was soon renamed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. As its name suggested, the organization intended to draw its strength from leaders of the [[Black church|Black Church]] in the South. Originally, SCLC was composed of affiliated churches and some community organizations such as the [[Montgomery Improvement Association]] and Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights, rather than individual members. In recent years SCLC has begun recruiting individual and corporate memberships. In the 1950s, SCLC's organizational role was initially seen as a central clearinghouse for information and marshalling support local civil rights struggles by SCLC affiliates. By the early 1960s, SCLC began to offer direct organizational support to affiliates and conduct major campaigns in cooperation with affiliates.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis57.htm#1957sclc SCLC Founded] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> == Tactics == == Major Campaigns and Projects of the 1960s== During its first few years, SCLC activities were focused primarily on education, voter registration, and support for local struggles being waged by SCLC affiliates. SCLC and Dr. King were sometimes criticized for lack of militancy by younger activists in groups such as [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]] (SNCC) and the [[Congress of Racial Equality]] (CORE) who were participating in [[sit-in]]s and [[Freedom ride|Freedom Rides]]. ===Citizenship Schools=== Originally started in [[1954]] by Esau Jenkins and [[Septima Poinsette Clark|Septima Clark]] on the [[Sea Islands]] off the coast of [[South Carolina]] and [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]], the Citizenship Schools focused on teaching adults to read so they could pass the voter-registration [[literacy test]]s, fill out driver's license exams, use mail-order forms, and open checking accounts. Under the auspices of the Highlander Folk School (now [[Highlander Research and Education Center]]) the program was expanded across the South. When the state of [[Tennessee]] revoked Highlander's charter and confiscated its land and property in 1961, SCLC rescued the citizenship school program and added Septima Clark, Bernice Robinson, and [[Andrew Young]] to its staff. Under the innocuous cover of adult-literacy classes, the schools secretly taught democracy and civil rights, community leadership and organizing, practical politicals, and the strategies and tactics of resistance and struggle, and in so doing built the human foundations of the mass community struggles to come. Many of the [[African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)|Civil Rights Movement]] 's adult leaders such as [[Rosa Parks]], [[Fannie Lou Hamer]], [[Victoria Gray Adams|Victoria Gray]], and hundreds of other local leaders in black communities across the South attended and taught citizenship schools.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis54.htm#1954ccs Citizenship Schools] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> === Albany Movement === {{main|Albany Movement}} In 1961 and 1962, SCLC joined SNCC in the [[Albany Movement]], a broad protest against segregation in [[Albany, Georgia|Albany]], Georgia. It is generally considered the organization's first major nonviolent campaign. At the time, it was considered by many to be unsuccessful: despite large demonstrations and many arrests, few changes were won, and the protests drew little national attention. Yet, despite the lack of immediate gains, much of the success of the subsequent Birmingham Campaign can be attributed to lessons learned in Albany.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961albany Albany GA, Movement] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> === Birmingham campaign === {{main|Birmingham campaign}} By contrast, the 1963 SCLC [[Birmingham campaign|campaign]] in [[Birmingham, Alabama|Birmingham]], Alabama, was an unqualified success. The campaign focused on a single goal — the desegregation of Birmingham's downtown merchants — rather than total desegregation, as in Albany. The brutal response of local police, led by Public Safety Commissioner [[Bull Connor|"Bull" Connor]], stood in stark contrast to the nonviolent civil disobedience of the activists. After his arrest in April, King wrote the "[[Letter from Birmingham Jail]]" in response to a group of clergy who had criticized the Birmingham campaign, writing that it was "directed and led in part by outsiders" and that the demonstrations were "unwise and untimely."<ref>{{cite paper | author=C.C.J. Carpenter; ''et al.'' | title=Statement by Alabama Clergymen | version= | format=.PDF | publisher=Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project | url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/clergy.pdf | date=12 April 1963 | accessdate=2008-02-12}}</ref> In his letter, King explained that, as president of SCLC, he had been asked to come to Birmingham by the local members: : I think I should indicate why I am here In Birmingham, since you have been influenced by the view which argues against "outsiders coming in." I have the honor of serving as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization operating in every southern state, with headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia. We have some eighty-five affiliated organizations across the South, and one of them is the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights. ... Several months ago the affiliate here in Birmingham asked us to be on call to engage in a nonviolent direct-action program if such were deemed necessary. We readily consented, and when the hour came we lived up to our promise. So I, along with several members of my staff, am here because I was invited here I am here because I have organizational ties here.<ref name=Birmingham>{{cite paper | author=Martin Luther King, Jr. | title=Letter from Birmingham Jail | version= | format=.PDF | publisher=Martin Luther King, Jr. Papers Project | url=http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/popular_requests/frequentdocs/birmingham.pdf | date=16 April 1963 | accessdate=2008-02-12}}</ref> King also addressed the question of "timeliness": : One of the basic points in your statement is that the action that I and my associates have taken in Birmingham is untimely. ... Frankly, I have yet to engage in a direct-action campaign that was "well timed" in the view of those who have not suffered unduly from the disease of segregation. For years now I have heard the word "Wait!" It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This "Wait" has almost always meant "Never." We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that "justice too long delayed is justice denied." We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God-given rights.<ref name=Birmingham/> The most dramatic moments of the Birmingham campaign came on [[2 May]], when more than 1,000 Black children left school to join the demonstrations; hundreds were arrested. The following day, 2,500 more students joined and were met by Bull Connor with police dogs and high-pressure fire hoses. That evening, television news programs reported to the nation and the world scenes of fire hoses knocking down schoolchildren and dogs attacking individual demonstrators. Public outrage led the [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedy]] administration to intervene more forcefully and a settlement was announced on [[10 May]], under which the downtown businesses would desegregate and eliminate discriminatory hiring practices, and the city would release the jailed protesters. === March on Washington === {{main|March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom}} After the Birmingham Campaign, SCLC called for massive protests in [[Washington, D.C.|Washington DC]] to push for new civil rights legislation that would outlaw segregation nation-wide. [[A. Philip Randolph]] and [[Bayard Rustin]] issued similar calls for a March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. On July 2nd, 1963, King, Randolph, and Rustin met with [[James L. Farmer, Jr.]] of [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]], [[John Lewis (politician)|John Lewis]] of [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]], [[Roy Wilkens]] of the [[National Association for the Advancement of Colored People|NAACP]], and [[Whitney Young]] of the [[Urban League]] to plan a united march on August 28. The media and political establishment viewed the march with great fear and trepidation over the possibility that protesters would run riot in the streets of the capitol. But their fears, the March on Washington was a huge success, with no violence, and an estimated number of participants ranging from 200,000 to 300,000. It was also a logistical triumph — more than 2,000 buses, 21 special trains, 10 chartered aircraft, and uncounted autos converged on the city in the morning and departed without difficulty by nightfall. The crowning moment of the march was Dr. King's famous "[[I Have a Dream]]" speech in which he articulated the hopes and aspirations of the [[African-American Civil Rights Movement (1955-1968)|Civil Rights Movement]] and rooted it in two cherished gospels — the Old Testament and the unfulfilled promise of the American creed.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/tim63b.htm#1963mow March on Washington for Jobs & Freedom] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> ===St. Augustine Protests=== When civil rights activists protesting segregation in St. Augustine, Florida were met with arrests and Ku Klux Klan violence, the local SCLC affiliate appealed to Dr. King for assistance in the spring of 1964. SCLC sent staff to help organize and lead demonstrations and mobilized support for St. Augustine in the North. Hundreds were arrested on sit-ins and marches opposing segregation, so many that the jails were filled and the overflow prisoners had to be held in outdoor stockades. Among the northern supporters who endured arrest and incarceration were Mrs. Malcolm Peabody, the mother of the governor of Massachusetts and Mrs. John Burgess, wife of the Episcopal Bishop of Massachusetts.<ref>[http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/saint_augustine.htm St. Augustine Movement] King Research and Education Institute (Stanford Univ)</ref> Nightly marches to the Old Slave Market were attacked by white mobs, and when blacks attempted to integrate "white-only" beaches they were assaulted by police who beat them with clubs. On June 11, Dr. King and other SCLC leaders were arrested for trying to lunch at the Monson Motel restaurant, and when an integrated group of young protesters tried to use the motel swimming pool the owner poured acid into the water. TV and newspaper stories of the struggle for justice in St. Augustine helped build public support for the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] that was then being debated in [[United States Congress|Congress]].<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/info/staug.htm St. Augustine Movement 1963-1964] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> ===Selma Voting Rights Campaign and March to Montgomery=== {{main|Selma to Montgomery marches}} When voter registration and civil rights activity in [[Selma, Alabama]] was blocked by an illegal injuction,<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis64.htm#1964selmainj The Selma Injunction] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> the Dallas County Voters League (DCVL) asked SCLC for assistance. Dr. King, SCLC, and DCVL chose Selma as the site for a major campaign around voting rights that would demand national voting rights legislation in the same way that the [[Birmingham campaign|Birmingham]] and St. Augustine campaigns won passage of the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]].<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/disc/selma.htm#ala65proj SCLC's "Alabama Project"] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> In cooperation with SNCC who had been organizing in Selma since early 1963, the Voting Rights Campaign commenced with a rally in [[Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church (Selma, Alabama)|Brown Chapel]] on [[January 2]], 1965 in defiance of the injunction. SCLC and SNCC organizers recruited and trained blacks to attempt to register to vote at the courthouse, where many of them were abused and arrested by [[Dallas County, Alabama|Dallas County]] Sheriff Jim Clark&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;a staunch segregationist. Black voter applicants were subjected to economic retaliation by the [[White Citizens' Council]], and threatened with physical violence by the [[Ku Klux Klan]]. Officials used the discriminatory [[literacy test]]<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/info/lithome.htm Are You "Qualified" to Vote? The Alabama "Literacy Test"] ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans</ref> to keep blacks off the voter rolls. Nonviolent mass marches demanded the right to vote and the jails filled up with arrested protesters, many of them students. On February 1st, Dr. King and Rev. Abernathy were arrested. Voter registration efforts and protest marches spread to the surrounding [[Black Belt (region of Alabama)|Black Belt]] counties&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;[[Perry County, Alabama|Perry]], [[Wilcox County, Alabama|Wilcox]], [[Marengo County, Alabama|Marengo]], [[Greene County, Alabama|Greene]], and [[Hale County, Alabama|Hale]]. On February 18, an Alabama State Trooper shot and killed [[Jimmie Lee Jackson]] during a voting rights protest in [[Marion, Alabama|Marion]], county seat of Perry County. In response, on March 7th close to 600 protesters attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery to present their grievances to Governor [[George Wallace|Wallace]]. Led by Reverend [[Hosea Williams]] of SCLC and [[John Lewis (politician)|John Lewis]] of SNCC, the marchers were attacked by State Troopers, deputy sheriffs, and mounted possemen who used tear-gas, clubs, and bull whips to drive them back to Brown Chapel. News coverage of this brutal assault on nonviolent demonstrators protesting for the right to vote&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;which became known as "Bloody Sunday"&nbsp;&mdash;&nbsp;horrified the nation.<ref>{{citation | last = King Research & Education Institute at Stanford University | title = Selma to Montgomery March | url = http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/about_king/encyclopedia/selma_montgomery.htm }}</ref> Dr. King called on clergy and people of conscience to support the black citizens of Selma. Thousands of religious leaders and ordinary Americans came to demand voting rights for all. One of them was [[James Reeb]], a white [[Unitarian Universalist]] minister, who was savagely beaten to death on the street by Klansmen who severely injured two other ministers in the same attack. After many more protests, arrests, and much legal maneuvering, a Federal judge ordered Alabama to allow the march to Montgomery. It began on March 21 and arrived in Montgomery on the 24th. On the 25th, an estimated 25,000<ref>{{cite book | last = Garrow | first = David | title = Bearing the Cross | publisher = Morrow | date = 1986 | isbn = 0-688-04794-7}}</ref> protesters marched to the steps of the Alabama capitol in support of voting rights where Dr. King spoke<ref>{{citation | last = King Research & Education Institute at Stanford University | title = "Our God Is Marching On!" | url = http://www.stanford.edu/group/King/publications/speeches/Our_God_is_marching_on.html}}</ref> on the voting rights struggle. Within five months, Congress and President [[Lyndon Johnson]] responded to the enormous public pressure generated by the Voting Rights Campiagn by enacting into law the [[Voting Rights Act of 1965]]. ===Grenada Freedom Movement=== When the [[March Against Fear|Meredith Mississippi March Against Fear]] passed through [[Grenada, Mississippi|Grenada]] [[Mississippi]] on June 15, 1966, it sparked months of civil rights activity on the part of Grenada blacks. They formed the Grenada County Freedom Movement (GCFM) as an SCLC affiliate, and within days 1,300 blacks registered to vote.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org/info/grenada.htm Grenada Mississippi, 1966 Chronology of a Movement]</ref> Though the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] had outlawed segregation of public facilities, the law had not been applied in Grenada which still maintained rigid segregation. After black students were arrested for trying to sit downstairs in the "white" section of the movie theater, SCLC and the GCFM demanded that all forms of segregation be eliminated, and called for a boycott of white merchants. Over the summer, the number of protests increased and many demonstrators and SCLC organizers were arrested as police enforced the old [[Jim Crow]] social order. In July and August, large mobs of white segregationists mobilized by the [[Ku Klux Klan|KKK]] violently attacked nonviolent marchers and news reporters with rocks, bottles, baseball bats and steel pipes. When the new school year began in September, SCLC and the GCFM encouraged more than 450 black students to register at the formerly white schools under a court desegregation order. This was by far the largest school integration attempt in Mississippi since the [[Brown v. Board of Education|''Brown v. Board of Education'']] ruling in 1954. The all-white school board resisted fiercely, whites threatened black parents with economic retaliation if they did not withdraw their children, and by the first day of school the number of black children registered in the white schools had dropped to approximately 250. On the first day of class, September 12, a furious white mob organized by the Klan attacked the black children and their parents with clubs, chains, whips, and pipes as they walked to school, injuring many and hospitalizing several with broken bones. Police and Mississippi State Troopers made no effort to halt or deter the mob violence. Over the following days, white mobs continued to attack the black children until public pressure and a Federal court order finally forced Mississippi lawmen to intervene. By the end of the first week, many black parents had withdrawn their children from the white schools out of fear for their safety, but approximately 150 black students continued to attend, still the largest school integration in state history up to that point in time. Inside the schools, blacks were harassed by white teachers, threatened and attacked by white students, and many blacks were expelled on flimsy pretexts by school officials. By mid-October, the number of blacks attending the white schools had dropped to roughly 70. When school officials refused to meet with a delegation of black parents, black students began boycotting both the white and black schools in protest. Many children, parents, GCFM activists, and SCLC organizers were arrested for protesting the school situation. By the end of October, almost all of the 2600 black students in Grenada County were boycotting school. The boycott was not ended until early November when SCLC attorneys won a Federal court order that the school system treat everyone equal regardless of race and meet with black parents. ===Chicago Freedom Movement=== {{main|Chicago Freedom Movement}} ===Poor People's Campaign=== {{main|Poor People's Campaign}} == Relationships with other organizations == Because of its dedication to [[Nonviolence|non-violent]] direct-action protests, [[Civil disobedience]], and mobilizing mass participation in boycotts and marches, SCLC was considered more "radical" than the older [[NAACP]] which favored lawsuits, legislative lobbying, and education campaigns conducted by professionals and usually opposed civil-disobedience. At the same time it was generally considered to be less radical than [[Congress of Racial Equality|CORE]] or the youth-led [[Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee|SNCC]]. To a certain extent during the period 1960-1964, SCLC had a mentoring relationship with SNCC before SNCC began moving away from nonviolence and integration in the late 1960s. Over time, SCLC and SNCC took different strategic paths, with SCLC focusing on large-scale campaigns such as [[Birmingham campaign|Birmingham]] and [[Selma to Montgomery marches|Selma]] to win national legislation and SNCC focusing on community-organizing to build political power on the local level. In many communities, there was tension between SCLC and SNCC because SCLC's base was the minister-led Black churches and SNCC was trying to build rival community organizations led by the poor.<ref>[http://www.crmvet.org Civil Rights Movement Veterans]</ref> == Leadership== The best-known member of the SCLC was [[Martin Luther King]], who led the organization until he was assassinated on April 4th 1968. Other prominent members of the organization have included [[Joseph Lowery]], [[Ralph Abernathy]], [[Ella Baker]], [[Jesse Jackson]], [[James Orange]], [[Charles Kenzie Steele]], [[C.T. Vivian]], [[Fred Shuttlesworth]], [[Walter E. Fauntroy]], [[Claude Young]], [[Al Sharpton]], [[Curtis W. Harris]], [[Hosea Williams]], [[Maya Angelou]], and [[Andrew Young]]. ;Presidents {| |- || '''{{*}}'''1957-1968 || [[Martin Luther King, Jr.]] |- || '''{{*}}'''1968-1977 || [[Ralph Abernathy]] |- || '''{{*}}'''1977-1997 || [[Joseph Lowery]] |- || '''{{*}}'''1997-2004 || [[Martin Luther King III]] |- || '''{{*}}'''2004 || [[Fred Shuttlesworth]] |- || '''{{*}}'''2004-''present'' || [[Charles Kenzie Steele, Jr.]] |} == References == <div class="references-small"> *{{cite book | last=Williams | first=Juan | title=Eyes on The Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965 | location=New York | publisher=Viking | year=1987 | isbn=0670814121 }} *{{cite encyclopedia | last=Aguiar | first=Marian | coauthors=Gates, Henry Louis | title=Southern Christian Leadership Conference | encyclopedia=Africana: the encyclopedia of the African and African American experience| location=New York | publisher=Basic Civitas Books | year=1999 | isbn=0465000711}} *{{cite book | last=Marable | first=Manning | coauthors=Mullings, Leith | title=Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle | location=London | publisher=Phaidon | year=2002 | isbn=0714842702}} *{{cite encyclopedia |last=Cooksey | first=Elizabeth B. | editor= | encyclopedia=The new Georgia encyclopedia | title=Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) | url=http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2743&sug=y | date=23 December 2004 | publisher=Georgia Humanities Council | volume= | location=Athens, GA | oclc=54400935 | accessdate=2008-02-12}} </div> ==Notes== {{Reflist|2}} == External links == * [http://sclcnational.org/content/sclc/splash.htm The SCLC Official Website] * [http://www.crmvet.org Civil Rights Movement Veterans] {{SCLC presidents}} {{Aafooter}} [[Category:1957 establishments]] [[Category:African Americans' rights organizations]] [[Category:COINTELPRO targets]] [[Category:Martin Luther King, Jr.]] [[Category:Political advocacy groups in the United States]] [[cs:Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] [[es:Conferencia Sur de Liderazgo Cristiano]] [[fr:Southern Christian Leadership Conference]]