Riding the success of the Montgomery bus boycott, Rev. King and members of the Fellowship of Reconciliation, a Christian pacifist organization formed during WWI, convened around sixty clergymen for a conference in Atlanta. The goal of the conference was to create an organization that would continue the fight started in Montgomery to secure and promote the passage of favorable civil rights legislation. In the summer of 1957, King and his fellow black ministers established the SCLC. The SCLC's founding message was to "redeem the soul of America."