Tag: SCLC

Today, everybody in the South is living better than they’ve ever lived before, and we are much further along than we realize. The problems that still exist are hard to evaluate—in part because many people who identify as Christians seem to have gotten confused as to which side they’re on. Right now, we have a nation that seems to be completely divided.

Not everyone is able to go out and protest, and that’s okay. But there are still plenty of ways to help out those in our local community who are fighting for racial equity. Here is a roundup of local and national nonprofits, groups, and funds.

“It’s a story of an unsung human rights leader who applied the tenets of his faith to encourage a reticent congregation to stand up against segregation,” says Jimmy Maize, writer and director of a new play based on the events, The Temple Bombing, which makes its debut at the Alliance Theatre on February 22.

As attendees made their way to last night’s opening reception for “And the Struggle Continues,” an exhibit showcasing the Southern Christian Leadership Conference papers housed at Emory University, they passed more than four dozen student and faculty protestors. Lining the circular foyer on the third-floor landing of the Woodruff Library, the demonstrators silently presented a thicket of placards—“We are Emory,” “We are sorry,” “I deserve 5/5 respect,” “Ethics is not a brand,” "This is 5/5 outrageous." The SCLC artifacts provided an easy analogy: photos of Rev. Joseph Lowery with a bullhorn, Andrew Young walking a picket line, signs from 1968’s Resurrection City.

The Reverend Joseph Lowery is uncharacteristically quiet as he sits at a long table inside the modest room in Downtown’s Atlanta Life Insurance Company building. Between bites of fried chicken and peach cobbler, he occasionally interjects or asks a question, but mostly he listens attentively, staring out at a group that’s as diverse as the issues for which its members are so passionate.

The remarkable behind-the-scenes story of Martin Luther King Jr.'s 1968 funeral.

John Lewis and Julian Bond. Two men whose lives were shaped in the crucible of the civil rights movement, whose beings were transformed by the soaring energy and ringing eloquence of the man who came to symbolize that movement, Martin Luther King Jr., and whose major roles have been played out in the cold vacuum of his absence.

On a Memphis motel balcony four years ago this month, a 30.06 slug tore the life from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. His colleague and intimate friend, the Rev. Ralph David Abernathy, was standing inches behind him when the bullet struck.