Editing Ralph Abernathy (section)

===Southern Christian Leadership Conference and support of Freedom Riders===
[[File:Abernathy Children on front line leading the SELMA TO MONTGOMERY MARCH for the RIGHT TO VOTE.JPG|thumb|Abernathy and his wife [[Juanita Abernathy]] with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife [[Coretta Scott King]]. [[James Reeb]] and the Abernathy children are shown in the front line, leading the [[Selma to Montgomery March]] in 1965.]]

On January 11, 1957, after a two-day-long meeting, the Southern Leaders Conference on Transportation and Non-violent Integration was founded.<ref name="statement">{{cite press release | url=http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/statement-south-and-nation-1 | title=A Statement to the South and Nation | publisher=Southern Leaders Conference on Transportation and Non-violent Integration | date=January 11, 1957 | access-date=March 17, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402093020/http://www.thekingcenter.org/archive/document/statement-south-and-nation-1 | archive-date=April 2, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> On February 14, 1957, the conference convened again in [[New Orleans]]. During that meeting, they changed the group's name to the Southern Leadership Conference and appointed the following executive board: King, president; [[Charles Kenzie Steele]], vice president; Abernathy, financial secretary-treasurer; [[T. J. Jemison]], secretary; I. M. Augustine, general counsel.<ref name="SCLChistory">{{cite web |title=Our History |url=http://sclcnational.org/our-history/ |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150206131140/http://sclcnational.org/our-history/ |archive-date=February 6, 2015 |access-date=March 17, 2015 |publisher=Southern Christian Leadership Conference}}</ref><ref name="EA2">{{cite encyclopedia | url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1909 | title=Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) | encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Alabama | date=January 12, 2009 | access-date=March 17, 2015 | author=Brooks, F. | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150328204223/http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1909 | archive-date=March 28, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> On August 8, 1957, the Southern Leadership Conference held its first convention, in Montgomery.<ref name="threshold">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TU_HozbJSC8C&q=southern%20christian%20leadership%20conference%20%22august%201957%22&pg=PA227 | title=The Papers of Martin Luther King Jr: Threshold of a new decade, January 1959 – December 1960 | publisher=University of California Press | author1=King, Martin | author2=Holloran, Peter | author3=Luker, Ralph | author4=Russell, Penny | year=2005 | pages=227 | isbn=0520242394 | editor=Carson, Clayborne | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150515112346/https://books.google.com/books?id=TU_HozbJSC8C&lpg=PA227&ots=TXp5fzxzVZ&dq=southern%20christian%20leadership%20conference%20%22august%201957%22&pg=PA227 | archive-date=May 15, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> They changed the conference's name a final time to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and decided to start voter registration drives for black people across the south.<ref name="threshold"/><ref name="tns">{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j4dV9NHvdIsC&q=southern%20christian%20leadership%20conference%20%22august%201957%22&pg=PA183 | title=The New South, 1945–1980 | publisher=LSU Press | author=Bartley, Numan | year=1995 | pages=183 | isbn=080711944X | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150514171144/https://books.google.com/books?id=j4dV9NHvdIsC&lpg=PA183&ots=rVg1EKjY6b&dq=southern%20christian%20leadership%20conference%20%22august%201957%22&pg=PA183 | archive-date=May 14, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref>

On May 20, 1961, the [[Freedom Riders]] stopped in Montgomery while on their way from [[Washington, D.C.]], to New Orleans to protest the still segregated buses across the south.<ref name="crmvetM">{{cite web | url=http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961frmont | title=Mobs in Montgomery AL | publisher=Tougaloo College | work=Civil Rights Movement Archive | access-date=March 17, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=http://archive.wikiwix.com/cache/20100710102808/http://www.crmvet.org/tim/timhis61.htm#1961frmont | archive-date=July 10, 2010 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> Many of the Freedom Riders were beaten by a white mob once they arrived at the Montgomery bus station, causing several of the riders to be hospitalized.<ref name="crmvetM"/> The following night Abernathy and King set up an event in support of the Freedom Riders, where King would make an address, at Abernathy's church.<ref name="program">{{cite web | url=http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/mlk_doc.pdf | title=The Montgomery Improvement Association Salutes the "Freedom Riders" | publisher=The United States Marshals Service | work=The Montgomery Improvement Association | date=May 21, 1961 | access-date=March 17, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160304114423/http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/mlk_doc.pdf | archive-date=March 4, 2016 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> More than 1,500 people came to the event that night.<ref name="wgbh">{{cite web | url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/people/ralph-abernathy | title=Ralph Abernathy&nbsp;— Freedom Rider | publisher=WGBH | work=PBS | access-date=March 17, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150317074739/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/freedomriders/people/ralph-abernathy | archive-date=March 17, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref name="unc">{{cite web | url=https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/blog/index.php/2012/05/21/on-this-day-first-baptist-church-under-siege/ | title=On This Day: First Baptist Church Under Siege | publisher=Special Collections Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | work=Publishing the Long Civil Rights Movement | date=May 21, 2012 | access-date=March 17, 2015 | author=Shay, Alison | url-status=dead | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150120141108/https://lcrm.lib.unc.edu/blog/index.php/2012/05/21/on-this-day-first-baptist-church-under-siege/ | archive-date=January 20, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> The church was soon surrounded by a mob of white segregationists who laid siege on the church.<ref name="EA">{{cite encyclopedia | url=http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1110 | title=Ralph David Abernathy | encyclopedia=Encyclopedia of Alabama | date=March 14, 2007 | access-date=March 17, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150407132743/http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/article/h-1110 | archive-date=April 7, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref><ref name="doj">{{cite web | url=https://www.justice.gov/crt/opa/pr/speeches/2011/crt-speech-110524.html | title=Assistant Attorney General Thomas E. Perez Speaks at the All People's Program Honoring the Freedom Riders | publisher=The United States Department of Justice | date=May 24, 2011 | access-date=March 17, 2015 | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141113052231/http://www.justice.gov/crt/opa/pr/speeches/2011/crt-speech-110524.html | archive-date=November 13, 2014 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> King, from inside the church, called the [[United States Attorney General|Attorney General]] [[Robert F. Kennedy]], and pleaded for help from the federal government.<ref name="unc"/> There was a group of [[United States Marshal]]s sent there to protect the event, but they were too few in number to protect the church from the angry mob, who had begun throwing rocks and bricks through the windows of the church.<ref name="usm">{{cite web | url=http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/mlk.htm | title=An Emergency Call to Montgomery | publisher=The United States Marshals Service | access-date=March 17, 2015 | author=Turk, Dave | url-status=live | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150402134052/http://www.usmarshals.gov/history/mlk.htm | archive-date=April 2, 2015 | df=mdy-all }}</ref> Reinforcements with riot experience, from the [[United States Marshals Service|Marshals service]], were sent in to help defend the perimeter.<ref name="usm"/> By the next morning, the [[Governor of Alabama]], after being called by Kennedy, sent in the [[Alabama National Guard]], and the mob was finally dispersed.<ref name="unc"/> After the success of the Freedom Riders in Montgomery, [[Birmingham, Alabama|Birmingham]], and [[Huntsville, Alabama]] in 1961, King insisted that Abernathy assume the pastorate of the West Hunter Street Baptist Church in [[Atlanta]]; Abernathy moved his family from Montgomery becoming the pastor in 1962.<ref name=EB/>

The King/Abernathy partnership spearheaded successful nonviolent movements in Montgomery; [[Albany, Georgia]]; Birmingham, [[Mississippi]], Washington D.C., [[Selma, Alabama]]; [[St. Augustine, Florida]]; [[Chicago]], and [[Memphis, Tennessee|Memphis]]. King and Abernathy journeyed together, often sharing the same hotel rooms, and leisure times with their wives, children, family, and friends. And they were both jailed 17 times together, for their involvement in the movement.<ref name="nyt"/>