Ralph Abernathy (1926-1990)
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The 29-year-old minister of Montgomery, Alabama's First Baptist Church, Ralph Abernathy took a leading role in the 1955-56 bus boycott in that city, and had his home and church bombed as a result. Called "the best friend that I have in the world" by fellow minister and activist Martin Luther King, Jr., Abernathy traveled with King as a representative of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was jailed 19 times between 1961 and 1965. After King's 1968 assassination, Abernathy led the Poor People's Campaign and ran the SCLC until 1977.
page created on 8.23.06
