Portal:Civil rights movement/Selected biography/6

Ralph David Abernathy Sr. (March 11, 1926 – April 17, 1990) was a leader of the Civil Rights Movement, a minister, and a close friend of Martin Luther King Jr. He collaborated with King to create the Montgomery Improvement Association, which led to the Montgomery Bus Boycott. Abernathy also co-founded, and was an executive board member, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Following the assassination of King in 1968, Abernathy became president of the SCLC. As president of the SCLC, he led the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, D.C., among other marches and demonstrations for disenfranchised Americans. Abernathy also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).

Abernathy addressed the United Nations about world peace. He also assisted in brokering a deal between the FBI and the indigenous peoples during the Wounded Knee incident of 1973. He retired from his position as President of the SCLC in 1977, and subsequently became President emeritus. That year he unsuccessfully ran for the U.S. House of Representatives, for the 5th district of Georgia. Abernathy later founded the Foundation for Economic Enterprises Development. And in 1982, he testified before the U.S. Congress in support of extending of the Voting Rights Act.

In 1989, Abernathy wrote And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography, a controversial autobiography about his and King's involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. After becoming ridiculed for the revelations in the book about Martin Luther King's alleged infidelity, Abernathy eventually became less active in politics and returned to his work as a minister. He died of heart disease on April 17, 1990. His tombstone is engraved with the words "I tried". (more...)