born March 11, 1926, Linden, Ala., U.S.
died April 17, 1990, Atlanta, Ga.
U.S. pastor and civil rights leader.
He was educated at Alabama State University and Atlanta University. Ordained a Baptist minister in 1948, he became pastor of the First Baptist Church in Montgomery, Ala., in 1951. He met Martin Luther King, Jr. , a few years later when the latter became pastor of another Baptist church in Montgomery. In 195556 the two men organized a nonviolent boycott of the city bus system, marking the beginning of the U.S. civil rights movement . In 1957 they founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference . Abernathy became its president on King's assassination in 1968; in 1977 he resigned to resume work as a pastor in Atlanta. His autobiography, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down , appeared in 1989.