SCLC

A religious organisation in favour of American Civil Rights.**
 * SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE (SCLC)

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference is a religious organisation which strongly aided in the Civil Rights Movement of the USA during the 1950s and 60s. The conference is alleged to have originated at first under the name of the Montgomery Improvement Association. The association was said to have been responsible for the Montgomery Bus Boycott resulting in the desegregation of public transport; which occurred in the American state of Alabama after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusal to give up her seat.The association began to form regional organizations and lead other protest activities across the Southern states.

On the Atlanta meeting held on January 10th, 1957- There was an announcement for the founding of the Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration. Members of the conference drew up a statement stating that civil rights is a necessity for a democratic nation, that segregation must end, and that all African American citizens are to reject segregation in absolute non-violent behavior.

The Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Non-violent Integration later only became the Southern Leadership Conference after a meeting in New Orleans on February 14, 1957. The shortened name conference established an Executive Board of Directors. It also established elected officers with the including of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as President, Dr. Ralph David Abernathy as Financial Secretary-Treasurer, Rev. C. K. Steele of Tallahassee, Florida as Vice President, Rev. T. J. Jemison of Baton Rouge, Louisiana as Secretary, and Attorney I. M. Augustine of New Orleans, Louisiana as General Counsel

At the premiere convention of the new conference in Montgomery, August 1957, the conference adopted the present name: Southern Christian Leadership Conference. Basic decisions made by the founders at early meetings included adopting of nonviolent mass action as the cornerstone of strategy, affiliation of local community organizations with the SCLC across the Southern states, and willpower to make the SCLC movement open to any citizen regardless of race or religion, more specifically, SCLC called for three basic ‘wants’: 1) White Americans to not stand by and watch while wrongs were being committed against the black community. By using the word ‘Negro’ in its original title, the movement effectively blanked out any chance that white Southerners might help them. The change in title overcame this. 2) Black Americans were encouraged to “//seek justice and reject all injustice//.” 3) All those associated with SCLC had to accept the philosophy of non-violence regardless of the provocation. The SCLC’s ‘motto’ was “//not one hair of one head of one white person shall be harmed//.”

SCLC is still an organisation in present day America which is now built on chapters and affiliates with programs that affect the lives of all Americans, and led by Bernice King (Martin Luther King's daughter).

One of the first offices of the SCLC in Alabama, with Dr. Martin Luther King Junior standing in front.




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