Abernathy, Ralph David (1926-1990), was an American civil rights leader. Abernathy served as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) from 1968 to 1977. He succeeded Martin Luther King, Jr., who was murdered in 1968. In 1955 and 1956, Abernathy helped King lead a bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, to protest racial discrimination (see King, Martin Luther, Jr. (The early civil rights movement) ). He and King helped organize the SCLC in 1957. Abernathy became the SCLC’s vice president at large in 1965. In May 1968, he led the “Poor People’s March” on Washington, D.C., which dramatized problems faced by poor people.
Abernathy was born on March 11, 1926, in Linden, Alabama. He earned a B.S. degree at Alabama State College and an M.S. degree at Atlanta University. He became a Baptist minister in 1948. Abernathy ran unsuccessfully for a Georgia congressional seat in 1977. His autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, was published in 1989. Abernathy died on April 17, 1990.
