Which organization did Martin Luther King Jr. lead as president during the major civil-rights campaigns of the 1960s?

Martin Luther King Jr. led the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as its president during major civil-rights campaigns of the 1960s.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, commonly called the SCLC, was founded in 1957 by ministers and civil-rights activists who wanted to coordinate nonviolent protests across the South. King became its first president after his prominent role in the Montgomery bus boycott.

The SCLC organized or supported campaigns in Albany, Birmingham, Selma, and other communities. Its strategy combined mass meetings, marches, boycotts, voter-registration efforts, and disciplined nonviolent resistance. Television coverage of police violence against demonstrators helped bring national attention to local campaigns.

The SCLC was not the same as SNCC, CORE, or the NAACP. Those organizations sometimes cooperated, but they had different structures and priorities. King remained the SCLC’s best-known leader until his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968.