Southern Christian Leadership Conference: Why is it important?

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.

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Americans must defend our nation’s freedoms and reject political violence

The assassination of conservative political commentator and activist Charlie Kirk drew too many reactions celebrating his death than rejecting political violence.