Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), U.S. civil rights organization. The group was established (1957) by the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and his co-workers to coordinate localized groups working for equal rights for African Americans and other minorities. Adhering to King's doctrine of nonviolent civil protest, the SCLC organized numerous marches and voter-registration drives that, in the early 1960s, led to passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Rev. King led the group until his assassination in 1968. Headquarters are in Atlanta, Ga.

See also: King, Martin Luther, Jr.