The festering battle between the SCLC and the organization’s Florida chapter has erupted.
On Monday, officials from Florida announced that they were withdrawing from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to form a separate organization, because, “The national organization has lost its way.”
The new organization might sound a bit familiar.
The National Christian Leadership Conference.
Sevell Brown, the NCLC’s interim director, said the board of directors of the Florida SCLC voted unanimously to join the new organization. That would essentially end ties with the SCLC for the Florida chapters: Pensacola, Tallahassee, St. Petersburg and St. Augustine, he said.
“This is a new day for civil rights in Florida and the nation,” said Brown, the former Florida president. “We will carry on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We still dream the dream.”
In a statement released Monday, SCLC attorney Dexter Wimbish implied that the NCLC’s name is too close for comfort.
“There is only one national SCLC, and we shall not allow any person or organization to mislead the public,” Wimbish said about the Atlanta-based organization founded by King in 1957.
In June, SCLC officials reported that they cut ties with Florida because state leaders failed to keep at least three local chapters organized. Wimbish said Brown was removed from office because of “ineffective leadership.”
Brown said the trouble started when he started asking questions about the group’s finances.
The former SCLC officials from Florida claim that more than $1 million that was given to the nonprofit SCLC Foundation, a separate organization controlled by SCLC board members, did not show up in the SCLC form 990, a yearly IRS financial report.
Wimbish said the foundation filed its own 990 form and added that the money was used for new offices on Auburn Avenue and did not have to be routed through the SCLC.
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