SCLC

**__Southern Christian Leadership Conference__**

 * Founded in 1957 at the conclusion of the Montgomery bus boycott, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference was led by Martin Luther King Jr. Other founders included Ralph Abernathy , Bayard Rustin , Fred Shuttlesworth, and other black ministers. Efforts of the SCLC included the desegregation of Birmingham and Alabama, the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, and the voting rights campaign in Selma and Alabama. The SCLS was named the (Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Non-viollent integration) then renamed to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. A major achievement after many success in the 1950's was that they led the 1957 Prayer Pilgrimage that brought 25,000 people to Washington, D.C. as well as a 1957 youth march in Washington that brought 40,000. In the early 1960s new leaders joined the group including Andrew J. Young and Wyatt T. Walker who increased the staff from 5 to 60. In Birmingham in 1963, the SCLC pushed until police used dogs and high-pressure fire hoses against demonstrators (including children) while television cameras captured the whole thing. America was shocked including President John F. Kennedy. This was a major event because it pushed the necessity for the Civil Rights Act of 1964.**
 * In 1967, the SCLC shifted its focus to northern black poverty, the presumed cause of inner-city violence and the rise of the Black Panther movement. The SCLC's major goals were to operate citizenship schools, organize voter registration campaigns, and most of all preach nonviolence to show that civil rights was a moral as much as a political issue. In the early 1970s, the older leadership departed and Joseph Lowery became president of the SCLC 1977. The group still remains active but without Martin Luther King it is no longer as powerful as it used to be.**