The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded in 1957 to build on the success of the Montgomery, AL bus boycott. Its organizers sought to bring together African-American leaders from all the major communities in the South to advocate for change at the highest levels of national government, while also coordinating nonviolent protest actions at the local level. Many of its leaders were ministers, including Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the first president.

In Kentucky, the SCLC was active primarily in Louisville, where King’s brother, Rev. A.D. King, pastored the Zion Baptist Church.