29 reasons to celebrate Black History Month: No. 4, SCLC

February marks Black History Month. Follow the AJC this month for a series of short stories and videos and people, places and events that played a significant role in the development of black people in America.

No. 4

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In early 1957, less than a month after orchestrating victory in the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Martin Luther King Jr. found himself in need of an organizational base to coordinate and support nonviolent direct action as a method of fighting racism. On Jan. 10, 1957, King invited Bayard Rustin and Ella Baker -- along with a host of ministers including, Joseph Lowery, Ralph David Abernathy and Fred Shuttlesworth – to Ebenezer Baptist Church to talk about forming what would be known as the SCLC. King was elected president, a post he held until his death in 1968.