Martin Luther King Jr.

===Southern Christian Leadership Conference===

In 1957, King, [[Ralph Abernathy]], [[Fred Shuttlesworth]], [[Joseph Lowery]], and other civil rights activists founded the [[Southern Christian Leadership Conference]] (SCLC). The group was created to harness the [[moral authority]] and organizing power of black churches to conduct nonviolent protests in the service of civil rights reform. The group was inspired by the crusades of evangelist [[Billy Graham]], who befriended King,<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/billygrahamriseo0000mill/page/92|title=Billy Graham and the Rise of the Republican South|page=[https://archive.org/details/billygrahamriseo0000mill/page/92 92]|first=Steven P.|last=Miller|year=2009|publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press|isbn=978-0-8122-4151-8|access-date=April 8, 2015}}</ref> as well as the national organizing of the group In Friendship, founded by King allies [[Stanley Levison]] and [[Ella Baker]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/levison-stanley-david|title=Levison, Stanley David|date=May 17, 2017|website=The Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute|language=en|access-date=January 30, 2020|last3=California 94305|archive-date=January 15, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200115075615/https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/levison-stanley-david|url-status=live}}</ref> King led the SCLC until his death.<ref>{{cite book|title=Let Nobody Turn Us Around: Voices of Resistance, Reform, and Renewal: an African American Anthology|url=https://archive.org/details/letnobodyturnusa00mann|url-access=registration|last1= Marable| first1= Manning | first2=Leith|last2=Mullings|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=0-8476-8346-X|year=2000|pages=[https://archive.org/details/letnobodyturnusa00mann/page/391 391–392]}}</ref> The SCLC's 1957 [[Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom]] was the first time King addressed a national audience.<ref>{{cite web|title=Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom|url=http://crdl.usg.edu/events/prayer_pilgrimage/?Welcome|publisher=Civil Rights Digital Library|access-date=October 25, 2013|archive-date=October 29, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029193659/http://crdl.usg.edu/events/prayer_pilgrimage/?Welcome|url-status=live}}</ref>

[[Harry H. Wachtel|Harry Wachtel]] joined King's legal advisor [[Clarence B. Jones]] in defending four ministers of the SCLC in the libel case ''[[Abernathy et al. v. Sullivan]]''; the case was litigated about the newspaper advertisement "[[Heed Their Rising Voices]]". Wachtel founded a tax-exempt fund to cover the suit's expenses and assist the nonviolent civil rights movement through a more effective means of fundraising. King served as honorary president of this organization, named the "Gandhi Society for Human Rights". In 1962, King and the Gandhi Society produced a document that called on President Kennedy to issue an executive order to deliver a blow for civil rights as a kind of [[Second Emancipation Proclamation]]. Kennedy did not execute the order.<ref name="Stanford University">{{cite web|url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/gandhi-society-human-rights|title=Martin Luther King Jr. and the Global Freedom Struggle: Gandhi Society for Human Rights|publisher=Stanford University|access-date=August 30, 2013|archive-date=June 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612015745/https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/gandhi-society-human-rights|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[Federal Bureau of Investigation|FBI]], under written directive from Attorney General [[Robert F. Kennedy]], began [[telephone tapping|tapping]] King's telephone line in the fall of 1963.<ref>{{cite book|title=The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide|last1=Theoharis|first1=Athan G.|first2=Tony G.|last2=Poveda|first3=Richard Gid|last3=Powers|first4=Susan|last4=Rosenfeld|page=[https://archive.org/details/fbicomprehensive0000theo/page/148 148]|isbn=0-89774-991-X|publisher=Greenwood Publishing|year=1999|url=https://archive.org/details/fbicomprehensive0000theo/page/148}}
</ref> Kennedy was concerned that public allegations of communists in the SCLC would derail the administration's civil rights initiatives. He warned King to discontinue these associations and later felt compelled to issue the written directive that authorized the FBI to wiretap King and other SCLC leaders.{{sfn|Herst|2007|pp=372–74}} FBI Director [[J. Edgar Hoover]] feared the civil rights movement and investigated the allegations of communist infiltration. When no evidence emerged to support this, the FBI used the incidental details caught on tape over the next five years, as part of its [[COINTELPRO]] program, in attempts to force King out of his leadership position.<ref name="autogenerated1">{{cite book|title=The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide|last1=Theoharis|first1=Athan G.|first2=Tony G.|last2=Poveda|first3=Richard Gid|last3=Powers|first4=Susan|last4=Rosenfeld|page=[https://archive.org/details/fbicomprehensive0000theo/page/123 123]|isbn=0-89774-991-X|publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group|year=1999|url=https://archive.org/details/fbicomprehensive0000theo/page/123}}</ref>

King believed that organized, nonviolent protest against the system of southern segregation known as [[Jim Crow laws]] would lead to extensive media coverage of the struggle for black equality. Journalistic accounts and televised footage of the daily indignities suffered by southern blacks, and of segregationist violence and harassment of civil rights supporters, produced a wave of sympathetic public opinion that convinced the majority of Americans that the civil rights movement was the most important issue in American politics in the early 1960s.<ref>{{cite book|title=Race and Labor Matters in the New U.S. Economy|last1=Wilson|first1=Joseph|first2=Manning|last2=Marable|first3=Immanuel|last3=Ness|page=[https://archive.org/details/racelabormatters0000unse/page/47 47]|isbn=0-7425-4691-8|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|year=2006|url=https://archive.org/details/racelabormatters0000unse/page/47}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|title= Architects of Political Change: Constitutional Quandaries and Social Choice Theory|last= Schofield|first= Norman|isbn= 0-521-83202-0|publisher= Cambridge University Press|year= 2006|page= [https://archive.org/details/architectsofpoli00norm/page/189 189]|url= https://archive.org/details/architectsofpoli00norm/page/189}}</ref>

King organized and led marches for blacks' right to [[Voting|vote]], [[Desegregation in the United States|desegregation]], [[labor rights]], and other basic civil rights.{{sfn|Jackson|2006|p=53}} Most of these rights were successfully enacted into law with the [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] and the 1965 [[Voting Rights Act]].<ref>{{cite book| title= International Encyclopedia of Public Policy and Administration|last=Shafritz|first= Jay M.|page= 1242|year= 1998| isbn=0-8133-9974-2| publisher= Westview Press}}</ref><ref>{{cite book| title= The Civil Rights Act of 1964: The Passage of the Law that Ended Racial Segregation| last1=Loevy | first1=Robert D.|first2=Hubert H.|last2=Humphrey|first3=John G.|last3=Stewart|isbn= 0-7914-3361-7 |publisher=SUNY Press|year= 1997| page=337}}</ref>

The SCLC used tactics of nonviolent protest with great success by strategically choosing the methods and places in which protests were carried out. There were often dramatic stand-offs with segregationist authorities, who sometimes turned violent.{{sfn|Glisson|2006|p=190}}