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.
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About the Author
Ernie Suggs is an enterprise reporter covering race and culture for the AJC since 1997. A 1990 graduate of N.C. Central University and a 2009 Harvard University Nieman Fellow, he is also the former vice president of the National Association of Black Journalists. His obsession with Prince, Spike Lee movies, Hamilton and the New York Yankees is odd.
