Cofounded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and longtime friends and allies Ralph Abernathy, Bayard Rustin, and Fred Shuttlesworth, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) came together in the aftermath of the Montgomery bus boycott as a way to coordinate efforts among southern Black churches to mount nonviolent challenges to segregation. The organization reified the moral role of the church in addressing a fundamental injustice against southern Black Americans while also laying the groundwork for a movement that mounted a more comprehensive political challenge against segregation and other forms of institutional racism. Throughout King’s career, the SCLC was both the primary driver of his efforts and an albatross around his neck, as its organizational needs and petty squabbles frequently distracted him from his mission.

On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks was arrested in Montgomery, Alabama, for refusing to give up her seat to a white passenger on a city bus. A secretary for the local chapter of the NAACP, Parks had expressed a willingness to challenge the city’s segregation ordinances and may have gotten herself arrested to spark a protest. She succeeded, and under the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr. and the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), Black participation on city buses declined precipitously.