The Southern Christian Leadership Conference

Mississippi Project/ Freedom Summer

Programs during Freedom Summer

• Voter Registration
• "The struggle for freedom in Mississippi can only be won by a combination of action within the state and heightened awareness throughout the country... to ensure the voting rights of Negroes"
• Freedom Schools
• "Freedom Schools will begin to supply the political education which the existing system does not provide for Negroes in Mississippi"
• Community Centers
• "Community centers will provide normally denied the Negro community in Mississippi... the centers will provide educational and cultural programs for the community"
• Research Projects
• "The program of voter registration and political organization will attempt to change the fundamental structure of political and economic activity in Mississippi.
• White Community Project
• "The effort to organize and educate Mississippi whites in the direction of democracy and decency can go longer be delayed... An attempt will be made to organize the poor white areas to make steps towards eliminating bigotry, poverty and ignorance"
• Law Student Project
• "A large number of law students will come to Mississippi to launch a massive legal offensive against the official tyranny

The Albany Movement

• Nov. 17th, 1961 -Aug. 12th, 1962
• It was considered one of the first mass movement during the Civil Rights era aimed at the desegregation of community
• Formed by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the SCLC, and other local activist groups
• Despite the mass meetings and protesting to get African-Americans the ability to vote and later, the involvement of the SCLC the movement didn't pick up full force
• Laurie Pritchett was able to use the movements non-violent tactics against them and simply shipped protesters of to the surrounding jails in other counties

The Mission

• In 1964, The SNCC called upon students from Northern Universities to bring the skills and enthusiasm to Mississippi to combat racism, improve the economic conditions fro African-Americans, voting rights, unjust and white supremacy
• In 1963, SNCC joined Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), SCLC, NAACP, and other civic groups to form the Council of Federates Organizations (COFO)
• COFO executed the Freedom Vote Campaign in which 80,000 Negroes cast ballots for Aaron Henry as Governor

Outcome of the Albany Movement

The SCLC and King left Georgia in the summer of 1962, as they began to anticipate that the jailing of the protestors were becoming too much, and none of the facilities in Albany were attempting to desegregate, let alone integrate, their facilities.

However, protestors morality increased as they realized how much power they had when they got out and protested for their civil rights; rather that accept the inequality deeply rooted in laws and ideologies of the South. It was this mentality that It was this mentality that the SCLC, King and many protester took to their campaign in Birmingham, Alabama 1963

“This conference is called because we have no moral choice, before God, but to

delve deeper into the struggle-and to do so with greater reliance on non-violence

and with greater unity, coordination, sharing and Christian understanding.”

- Martin Luther King Jr.

MIA Press Release

Jan. 7, 1957

Selma to Montgomery March

The First Convention

Held in August of 1957, in Montgomery Alabama the conference members reconvened and

• Renamed the Southern Leadership Conference
• They adopted the strategy of non-violent mass actions
• Create new affiliations with local organizations across the south
• Aimed to make the SCLC movement open to all people, "regardless or race, religion, or background"

In hopes of dismantling the white supremacist dominated political structure in Selma, Alabama the SCLC and King joined the SNCC in advancing the voter registration for African-Americans.

The catalyst for the march was the police brutality used against an Army veteran at a demonstration in a town over from Selma. The chairman of the SNCC, John Lewis, with the field director of the SCLC, Hosea Williams lead the marchers on March 7, 1965.

Mass Movements

The Early Stages

The Origins

The Poor People's Campaign

http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/us/1965-selma-to-montgomery-march-fast-facts/index.html

"A Statement to the South and the Nation", Issued by the Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration

The ministers who attended the conference created a "manifesto in which they called upon white southerners"

They also called upon the black people of the South

• First national economic campaign lead by the SCLC
• Building on their experiences in Chicago, King and the SCLC planned a multiracial campaign that would combine non-violence and the initiative to combat economic inequality in the US.

Recap

• March 7th (Bloody Sunday): Protestors were stopped on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, and pelted with tear gas and beaten brutally
• March 9th: King leads the second march from Selma, only to kneel for a brief moment and turn around
• President Lyndon B.Johnson speaks out about the violence that erupted in Selma and urges both sides to upkeep the law
• March 21st-25th: 3,200 marchers walk from Selma to Montgomery under the protection of federal troops (by the end there are 25,000 marchers)
• August 6th: President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Also take note that the SNCC leaders originally didn't want to follow through with the marches, especially since they would have to collaborate with the SCLC and King, and the cost would out weigh the benefits.
• "Some people started saying that the SCLC would have this march and then they would leave town, and the people would be left holding the bag"- John Lewis

King and the SCLC hoped that the campaign would being a second phase in the civil rights movement that was more inclusive of all impoverished people

The Chicago Plan

Reverend Abernathy took over, after King's assassination, and lead the Poor People's Campaign to Washington on June 19th, 1968 (Solidarity Day)

Over 50,000 people rallied in the Capitol

However the campaign ended as conditions where the protestors camped out, "Resurrection City", worsened and violence broke out

• Established on Jan 10-11th, 1957
• 60 Black ministers and civil rights activist met in Atlanta, Georgia
• The goal was to recreate the success of the Montgomery, Alabama Bus Boycott
• Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was the first elected president of the SCLC

Works Cited

Howard, Marilyn K. "Albany Movement." American History, ABC-CLIO, 2017, americanhistory.abc-clio.com/Search/Display/1732861. Accessed 18 Oct. 2017.

https://abernathysclcppc.weebly.com/sclc.html

http://okra.stanford.edu/transcription/document_images/Vol04Scans/94_7-Jan-1957_Montgomery%20Improvement%20Assoc.pdf

https://civilrightsinga.weebly.com/albany-movement.html

http://www.history.com/topics/black-history/martin-luther-king-jr/pictures/martin-luther-king-jr/martin-luther-king-leading-a-march-2

http://reuther.wayne.edu/node/7703

http://myauctionfinds.com/2015/07/29/sclcs-1968-poor-peoples-campaign-button/

• March 18th, 1968: MLK delivers a speech infront of 17,000 people
• March 28th, he lead protestors through Memphis which erupted in violence (however King vowed to redo the march with the intention of getting better results)

King's Last Crusade

• April 4th 1968: King was killed (night before the march) on the balcony of his hotel, during a meeting with Andrew Young and Rev. Jesse Jackson
• In the wake of his death, the SCLC struggled to regroup and continue on with the campaign
• 5 weeks after King's assassination, the SCLC lead thousands of protestors through Washington

• In 1966, the SCLC joined organizations in Chicago with the intention of bring national attention to the Northern urban poor.
• "If we can break the backbone of discrimination in Chicago, we can do it in all the cities in the country"- Martin Luther King
• (Jan. 1966) SCLC's Rev. James Bevel drafted the Chicago Plan " The SCLC Philosophy of Social Change: In our work in the South two principles have emerged: One, the crystallization of issues, and two the concentration of action".
• (July 1965), CCCO (Coordinating Council of Community Organizations) teamed up with SCLC and King to lead a massive march with a list of demands for Mayor Daley in tow

Chicago City Leaders Reactions

• Embarrassed by the national attention the marches were getting, city leaders decided to discuss a settlement
• The SCLC and King left Chicago as their preaching of Christianity wasn't a driving factor of the diverse population of Chicago
• "And some people in Chicago didn't even believe in churches, didn't believe in God; I mean they were avowed atheist"

- Linda Bryant Hall

Chicago Native & Member of Core

Eyes on the Prize Interview

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference

THANK YOU!

LO: Analyze the role of activists and groups in the fight to secure civil rights/voting for African-Americans