Civil Rights Group Seeks Stability by Expanding

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. —  The civil rights group founded by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. opened its five-day annual meeting Saturday, a year after the gathering was racked by turmoil so intense that police had to be called to keep the peace.

As the Southern Christian Leadership Conference meeting began, members said they had restored the group’s financial footing and planned to expand overseas in search of long-term stability.

President Charles Steele Jr. emphasized the theme for this year’s convention: “A New Day, a New Way.”

“We know where we came from, the history of our background,” he told a news conference. “Most important, we’re being driven by the spirit of God.”

Steele was joined by Birmingham civil rights leader and minister Abraham Lincoln Woods Jr., who said: “What’s important to me is that this represents a new beginning for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We have refocused ourselves.”

A year ago, the group was struggling with internal disagreements and financial troubles. Police were called when its 2004 convention turned into a shouting match.

The SCLC is now on solid financial footing for the first time in years -- thanks in part to its plan to open global conflict resolution centers based on King’s philosophy of nonviolent social change, Steele said in an interview. He said that centers had opened in Dayton, Ohio, and Israel, and that others were planned for China, Cuba, India and Italy.

The idea has resulted in corporate pledges and donations of about $650,000, allowing the Atlanta-based organization to meet all of its expenses and payroll six months after lights at the group’s headquarters were turned off for nonpayment, Steele said.

“We were on life support, but it didn’t die,” said Steele, a former Alabama state senator.

Steele took over the presidency in November at the board’s request after infighting and questionable management left the group near bankruptcy and its leadership in despair. The full convention is expected to ratify his leadership at the annual gathering at the Hopewell Baptist Church.

“Things have settled down,” said Tyrone L. Brooks Sr., a Georgia state legislator and former SCLC staff member. “The SCLC family has been able to get refocused and remember why we were founded: to be a long-term activist organization.”

Steele said as many as 7,000 people were expected to attend the convention, which would include addresses by former King aide Jesse Jackson and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.

Founded by King, Ralph Abernathy, Fred Shuttlesworth, Bayard Rustin and others in 1957 to fight legalized segregation in the Jim Crow South, the group helped organize some of the defining moments of the civil rights era, including the March on Washington in 1963 and the Alabama voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery two years later.