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Biography of Ralph David AbernathyName: Ralph David AbernathyBirth Date: 1926 Death Date: April 30, 1990 Place of Birth: Marengo County, Alabama, United States Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: civil rights activist Ralph David Abernathy Civil rights leader Ralph David Abernathy (1926-1990) was the best friend and trusted assistant of Martin Luther King, Jr., whom he succeeded as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a nonviolent civil rights organization.Ralph David Abernathy, one of 12 children, was born in Marengo County, Alabama, about 90 miles outside of Montgomery. Originally named David, he was nicknamed Ralph by one of his sisters after a favorite teacher. His father William, the son of a slave, supported his family as a sharecropper until he saved enough money to buy 500 acres of his own, upon which he built a prosperous self-sufficient farm. He eventually emerged as one of the leading African Americans in the county, serving as a deacon in his church and on the board of the local African American high school and becoming the first African American there who voted and served on the grand jury. Ralph aspired early on …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…Harper, 1989), which garnered criticism from other civil rights leaders for its revelations about the alleged extramarital affairs of Martin Luther King.Abernathy died of a heart attack on April 30, 1990 in Atlanta, Georgia. Associated Organizations Associated Events March on Washington, 1963, Montgomery Bus Boycott, 1955 Further Reading Ralph Abernathy's biography is And the Walls Came Tumbling Down : An Autobiography (1991). The first published biography of Abernathy is Catherine M. Reef, Ralph David Abernathy (People in Focus Book) (1995). There is a substantial amount of biographical material about him in Stephen Oates' biography of Martin Luther King, Jr., Let the Trumpet Sound (1982). Some information about Abernathy is also available in Flip Schulke, editor, Martin Luther King, Jr.; A Documentary ... Montgomery to Memphis (1976) and in David J. Garrow, The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr. (1981). There is information about Abernathy in a publication by the Southern Christian Leadership Conference entitled The Poor People's Campaign, a Photographic Journal (1968). |