RALPH DAVID ABERNATHY
(March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990)
American activist, Baptist Minister, President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
Bachelor’s Degree in Mathematics,
Master of Science degree in sociology
In 1954 he met Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s. He and Dr. King became the closest friend. In 1955, he collaborated with King to create the Montgomery Improvement Association, which would lead to the successful Montgomery Bus Boycott against segregation on buses in the south. In 1957, Abernathy co-founded and was an executive board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Following the assassination of King, Abernathy became president of the SCLC.
As president of the SCLC, he led the Poor People’s Campaign March on Washington, D.C. in 1968. Abernathy also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE). Abernathy remained president of the SCLC for nine years following Dr. King’s death in 1968 until his resignation in 1977, when he became President Emeritus He later returned to the ministry, and in 1989 – the year before his death — Abernathy wrote a controversial autobiography about his and King’s involvement in the civil rights movement.
Ralph Abernathy died at Emory Crawford Long Memorial Hospital on the morning of April 17, 1990, from two blood clots that traveled to his heart and lungs, five weeks after his 64th birthday. He is entombed in the Lincoln Cemetery in Atlanta, Georgia.