Ralph Abernathy

Ralph David Abernathy was born on March 11, 1926, in Linden, AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a U.S. state in the Southeast on the Gulf of Mexico, with its capital at Montgomery. It was admitted to the Union on December 14, 1819, as the 22nd state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,024,279 residents.Open the full entry, to William L. and Louivery Bell Abernathy. His father, the son of a slave, was a farmer and a deacon of the local Baptist church. The Encyclopedia of Alabama places his birth in the Hopewell community of Marengo County and records that he was the 10th of 12 children in a family that owned a 500-acre farm. He graduated from Linden Academy.⁠[1][2][3]

Toward the end of World War II he served overseas with the U.S. Army. In 1948 he was ordained a Baptist minister.⁠[2][1]

In 1950 he graduated from Alabama State College (now Alabama State University) in Montgomery with a B.S. in mathematics; as a student he led strikes over food and housing conditions. His interest then turned to sociology, and in 1951 he earned an M.A. in sociology from Atlanta University (now Clark Atlanta University).⁠[2][3][1]

In 1951 he became pastor of First Baptist Church in Montgomery, a large and prestigious African American congregation, and dean of students at Alabama State College; the King Institute gives the year of his pastorate as 1952. He was active in the NAACP and chaired a committee of a state Baptist Sunday School and Baptist Training Union Congress on the Brown v. Board of Education ruling.⁠[3][1][2]

After Martin Luther King Jr. arrived in Montgomery in 1954, Ralph Abernathy, three years his senior, mentored him within the city’s Black ministerial community.⁠[3]

After Rosa ParksRosa ParksRosa Parks (1913–2005) was an American civil rights activist. Her arrest in 1955 for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white passenger in Montgomery, Alabama, helped spark the 1955–56 Montgomery bus boycott, often seen as the start of the U.S. civil rights movement.Open the full entry’s arrest in December 1955, E. D. Nixon contacted Ralph Abernathy about a bus boycott. He, Martin Luther King Jr. and others formed the organization that led it, which took the name Montgomery Improvement Association at his suggestion, and he served as its program director. At the weekly mass meetings King addressed the philosophy of nonviolence while Abernathy pushed listeners toward concrete action. The boycott lasted more than a year, and Montgomery’s buses were desegregated in 1956.⁠[2][3][4][1]

On January 10–11, 1957, leaders of protest groups met in Atlanta and announced the founding of the Southern Leadership Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration; during the meeting his home and church in Montgomery were heavily damaged by bombs. At a meeting in New Orleans on February 14 the organization shortened its name and elected officers, with Martin Luther King Jr. as president and Ralph Abernathy as financial secretary-treasurer. In August 1957, at a convention in Montgomery, it adopted the name Southern Christian Leadership Conference.⁠[4][3]

In January 1960 he became president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, and Martin Luther King Jr. said Montgomery would “grow to higher heights” under his leadership. In 1961 his church hosted a rally for the Freedom Riders; when a mob attacked the building, he helped calm the people inside.⁠[2][3]

Later in 1961 he accepted the pastorate of West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta and moved there with his family, and he was named vice president at large of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and King’s designated successor.⁠[3][1]

On Good Friday, April 12, 1963, he was arrested in Birmingham, Alabama, with Martin Luther King Jr. and Fred Shuttlesworth during a demonstration that led to King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” He also took part in sit-ins in Montgomery, was jailed in St. Augustine, FloridaFloridaFlorida is a U.S. state occupying mainly the Florida peninsula, with its capital at Tallahassee; its most populous city is Jacksonville. It entered the Union on March 3, 1845, as the 27th state, and had a population of 21,538,187 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry, for swimming in a segregated pool and marched for housing equality in Chicago. The KingGordon RyanGordon Ryan is an American submission grappler and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt who won multiple ADCC World Championship titles and submitted André Galvão in the 2022 superfight, and is regarded by many as one of the finest no-gi grapplers; he announced the end of his competitive career in February 2026.Open the full entry Institute records that he and King were jailed together 17 times.⁠[3][2]

On April 4, 1968, he was in Memphis, TennesseeTennesseeTennessee is a U.S. state in the southeast-central United States, with its capital at Nashville. It was admitted to the Union on June 1, 1796, as the 16th state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 6,910,840 residents.Open the full entry, with Martin Luther King Jr. in support of the sanitation workers, and he stayed at King’s side after King was shot. He succeeded King as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, saying he held no ill will toward the assassin and describing King as “closer to me than a blood brother.” He carried out the Memphis sanitation workers’ march King had planned and led the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign, which included a march on Washington.⁠[3][2][1]

In 1977 he resigned as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and then ran unsuccessfully for the U.S. House of Representatives. He went on serving as pastor of West Hunter Street Baptist Church and speaking at other African American churches, and he founded the Foundation for Economic Enterprises Development to improve economic opportunity for Black Americans.⁠[3][2][1]

Ralph Abernathy died in Atlanta, Georgia, on April 17, 1990, at the age of 64, and was buried in Atlanta.⁠[1][3]

In August 1952 he married Juanita Odessa Jones, who became important to his civil rights work. They had four children.⁠[3]

His autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down, was published in 1989.⁠[1][3]

Atlanta named a downtown freeway in his honor. His Alabama home stands on the campus of Alabama State University, next to the relocated childhood home of the singer Nat “King” Cole.⁠[3]

In Stride Toward Freedom, Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that Abernathy “infused his audiences with new life and ardor.” Frye Gaillard, author of the Encyclopedia of Alabama article, judges that his “greatest contribution” to the movement was as King’s close friend and second in command, and writes that after King’s death many found that he lacked King’s charisma and credibility.⁠[2][3]

Southern Christian Leadership Conference: Official website: https://nationalsclc.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[4]