Ralph Abernathy
🗓️ April 17th
SFC Ralph Abernathy succeeded Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1968. The first event he oversaw was the Poor People’s Campaign, modeled after the Bonus March and Cox’s Army of 1932. After serving as Platoon Sergeant in a segregated infantry unit in the European combat theater during WWII, he used the GI Bill to enroll in college. He was an ordained Baptist minister and lead West Hunter Street Baptist Church in Atlanta, GA until his death on April 17, 1990.
Mandatory Fun:
And the Walls Came Tumbling Down (Harper & Row, 1989)
Chapter 14 of God is a Grunt (Hachette, 2021) discusses his leadership in the civil rights movement.
