With the goal of redeeming "the soul of America" through nonviolent resistance, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was established in 1957 to coordinate the action of local protest groups throughout the South. Under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr., the organization utilized the power and independence of black churches as the strength of its activities. King described SCLC as "church-oriented because of the very structure of the Negro community in the South."
The catalyst for formation of the SCLC was the Montgomery bus boycott. Following the success of the boycott in 1956, Bayard Rustin wrote a series of working papers to address the possibility of expanding the efforts in Montgomery to other cities throughout the South. In these papers, he asked whether or not an organization to coordinate these activities was needed. After much discussion with his advisors, King invited southern black ministers to the Negro Leaders Conference on Nonviolent Integration (soon to be renamed the Southern Christian Leadership Conference) at Ebenezer Church in Atlanta. The sixty ministers who attended released a manifesto in which they called upon white southerners to "realize that the treatment of Negroes is a basic spiritual problem. . . . Far too many have silently stood by." In addition, they encouraged black Americans "to seek justice and reject all injustice” and to dedicate themselves to the principle of nonviolence "no matter how great the provocation.”
SCLC differed from organizations such as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in that it operated as an umbrella organization of affiliates. Rather than seeking individual membership, it coordinated the activities of local organizations like the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) and the Nashville Christian Leadership Council. "The life blood of SCLC movements," as described in one of its pamphlets, "is the masses of people who are involved—its local affiliates and chapters." To that end, SCLC trained local communities in the philosophy of Christian nonviolence by conducting leadership training programs and opening citizenship schools. Through its affiliation with churches and its advocacy of nonviolence, SCLC sought to put the struggle for civil rights in moral terms.
Throughout the 1960s, SCLC coordinated mass protest campaigns and voter registration drives throughout the South, most notably in Albany, Georgia, and in Birmingham and Selma, Alabama. The organization also played a major role in the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom where Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered his " I Have a Dream" speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The visibility that SCLC brought to the civil rights struggle laid the groundwork for passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 .
By the latter half of the decade, tensions were growing between SCLC and more militant protest groups such as SNCC. Amid calls for “ Black Power,” King and the SCLC were often criticized for being too moderate and overly dependent on the support of white liberals. It was during this period that SCLC began to shift its attention toward economic inequality. Seeing poverty as the root of inner-city violence, SCLC planned the Poor People's Campaign to push for federal legislation that would guarantee employment, income, and housing for economically marginalized blacks. The assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. on 4 April 1968, however, crippled SCLC's momentum and undermined the success of the campaign. The organization, which had often been overshadowed by its leader's prominence, resumed plans for the Washington demonstration in tribute to King. Under Ralph Abernathy's leadership, between 50,000 and 100,000 people rallied in Washington from 13 May to 24 June 1968.
Headquartered in Atlanta, SCLC is now a nationwide organization with chapters and affiliates located throughout the United States. It continues its commitment to nonviolent action to achieve social, economic, and political justice and is currently focused on issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, hate crimes, and discrimination.