ABSTRACT
The main thrust of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) direction and focus came from black southern preachers and especially from Martin Luther King, who was elected SCLC president, and remained in that position for the rest of his life. King's experience with the Montgomery bus boycott convinced him that non-violent direct action, working alongside litigation and legislation, would be necessary in the fight against segregation. With the bus boycott over, both old and new rivalries began to surface in Montgomery's black community. Moreover, King and Wilkins placed a different emphasis on the future of the black struggle for civil rights. First civil rights act since Reconstruction, which established the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division. The US Department of Justice is the federal executive department that enforces the law and administers justice. Stanley Levison, a white Jewish New Yorker, was a trained lawyer and who had previously been involved with the American Jewish Congress.
