Ralph Abernathy was a leader in the Civil Rights Movement. He was born in March 11, 1926 in Linden Alabama. His father was a successful farmer. Abernathy attended and graduated Alabama State University with a B.S. degree in 1950. He became a Baptist minister. During the movement he supported and was a leader of nonviolence as a means to social change. In 1955 he was a great help to Martin Luther King Jr. in organizing the Montgomery bus boycott. During the Civil Rights movement, Abernathy was a treasurer and vice president in the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference). After the devastating assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. of 1968, Abernathy took on the Presidential position of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. In support of the nonviolence approach, Abernathy was a leader in the Poor People's Campaign on Washington D.C. after Martin Luther King Jr.'s death. In 1977 Abernathy turned away from the Civil Rights Movement scene as he retired from the SCLC. Abernathy then devoted his attention entirely to the West Hunter Street Baptist Church along with the movement on World Wide Peace. Ralph Abernathy died in 1990. His most important attribution to the Civil Rights movement was the strong persuasion of nonviolence and excellent organization of the bus boycott in Montgomery. .
He was treasurer, vice president, and, after King's assassination (1968), president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). An advocate of nonviolence as a means to social change, he led the Poor People's Campaign on Washington, D.C., after King's death. He resigned from the SCLC in 1977.