The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and its Impact on the Selma Campaign (1963-1965)

Abstract

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) is an African American organization that was founded in 1957 under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. to alter the discriminatory laws that restricted the freedom of blacks in America and kept them as second class citizens. In this regard, this research paper highlights the contribution of this organization to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965. A qualitative method was implemented by gleaning and analyzing the necessary data from the available historical sources, including books, articles, recorded interviews and narrations of eyewitnesses. The results show that though SCLC was not the prime mover of the campaign that started in 1963 to put an end to the phenomenon of blacks’ disenfranchisement, its involvement in 1964 had a significant impact on signing the Voting Rights Act in 1965 since its presence in the campaign paved the way for the adoption of the nonviolent strategies and the interference of media that could capture images of the violent treatment of peaceful blacks during their march. As a result, the federal government was compelled to take a prompt action.