The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Civil Rights Movement

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was an organization that fought for the civil rights and wellbeing of African Americans in the United States. They used nonviolent measures such as civil disobedience and boycotts to protest against injustice. SCLC's goals were to end segregation, provide civil rights to all citizens, and achieve equality through nonviolent measures. Martin Luther King Jr. was the first president of SCLC and gave his iconic 'I Have A Dream' speech, which became a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement. SCLC's contributions continued even after King's assassination, and their works were influential in the passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Running head: AMERICAN HISTORY
AMERICAN HISTORY
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Author Note

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The Southern Christian Leadership Conference or popularly known as the SCLC is an
organization that dealt with the civil rights and the wellbeing of the African American
community of the United States of America. The community had an immense dedication towards
nonviolent and direct-action protests. Considered a radical organization, they mainly took actions
related to civil disobedience and boycotts towards injustice that was used upon the Black
Americans. During the 1950s there were many rules regarding the segregation of the Black and
the White communities of the Southern States like Montgomery and Alabama (Ling, 2015). The
Black Americans were confined to used separate school, separate transport, separate water
fountains. However it was a counter effect when Rosa Parks, one of the most popular names of
Civil Rights Activist Movement did not surrender her bus seat to one of the White American
passengers and thus that lead to her arrest. This result started a massive outrage in the Black
American community and not just in the state of Montgomery but across the South. This
triggered the attention of Martin Luther King Jr. and he and the other leaders of the civil rights
movement made a plan to boycott the entire transport of the state of Montgomery. This massive
nonviolent counterattack continued for over 350 days as the Black community refused the bus
transport that started economical problems in the bus companies.
After the success of the Montgomery Bus Incident, many representatives from more than
10 different states of the South met in Atlanta, Georgia with collective ideas and ideologies to
create a new organization to continue their struggle for a betterment of the Black society. This
organization was named The Southern Christian Leadership Conference along with Martin
Luther King Jr. being its first president (Tkaczynski, Arli, & Hussey, 2017). The goals of the
organization was to end all segregation towards the Black society, to provide civil right to all the
citizens of the United States and all the change should be done trough non-violent measures. By

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the year of 1957, the SCLC targeted bigger and more ambitious objectives like recruiting the
affiliate groups centered around civil rights, to end to black disenfranchisement with the increase
of right to vote, by starting an open door policy that would make anyone join the SCLC, to refuse
to bow to unjust laws and achieve equality through nonviolent measures.
Martin Luther King Jr. also gave the iconic “I Have A Dream Speech” with the message
of ending racism in United States. He also addressed for economic and civil rights to the citizens
of United States (Garrow, 2015). What Martin Luther King Jr. demanded was a mutual equality
amongst all the races so that the sons and the daughters of the slaves can join hands with the sons
and the daughters of the slave masters and put aside their differences and move on. This speech
of Marin Luther King Jr. was addressed from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial located in
Washington D.C. and this speech was the most pivotal moment of the civil rights movement.
The speech has been used in many popular cultures and has been named one of the greatest
American speeches of all time. The March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr.
addressed his famous speech had thousands and thousands of attendees, there were fear that there
would be riots however, the entire event was peaceful and successful that even at night there
were no delay in public transport on the same day.
The SCLC also made many improvements when it came to voting rights for all citizens
of the United States. It was not only in the Southern States where the influence of SCLC spread
but all across America. However the organization took a major blow when Martin Luther King
Jr. was assassinated in 1968. This caused a widespread amount of race riots throughout United
States and many other political issues. April 7 was announced a national day of mourning for the
Martin Luther King Jr. by the President Lyndon B. Johnson.

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King’s efforts did make a massive impact on the overall civil rights movement of United
States and just after the assassination, within a few days the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was passed
by the Congress (Powell, 2015). This included in prohibiting discrimination in housing related
transaction and matter with the basis on race and religion involved. This later on increased to
include matters of sex and disability. This can be stated as a tribute towards the struggle and
contribution that was made by Martin Luther King Jr. SCLC contributions towards the Black
community also continued after the death of Martin Luther with Ralph Abernathy in his position
as the President. What actually started as massive protest group turned out to be one of the
largest civil right organizations of the world. Their works were so much influential that even the
president of that time, Lyndon B. Johnson also supported their claims and had meetings with the
members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

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REFERENCES
Garrow, D. J. (2015). Bearing the cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the southern Christian
leadership conference. Open Road Media.
Ling, P. J. (2015). Martin Luther King, Jr. Routledge.
Powell, C. (2015). Up from marriage: Freedom, solitude, and individual autonomy in the shadow
of marriage equality. Fordham L. Rev., 84, 69.
Tkaczynski, A., Arli, D., & Hussey, I. (2017). Learning to lead: Segmentation of attendees to a
Christian leadership conference. International Journal of Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector
Marketing, 22(1), e1567.