The civil rights group founded by Martin Luther King Jr. has opened its five-day annual meeting, a year after the gathering was wracked by turmoil so intense that police had to be called to keep the peace.
As the Southern Christian Leadership Conference began its meeting Saturday, members said they had restored the group's financial footing and planned to expand overseas in search of long-term stability.
President Charles Steele Jr. stressed the theme for this year's convention: "A New Day and New Way."
"We know where we came from, the history of our background. Most important, we're being driven by the spirit of God," he told a news conference.
Steele was joined by Birmingham civil rights leader and minister Abraham Lincoln Woods Jr., who said: "What's important to me is that this represents a new beginning for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. We have refocused ourselves."
A year ago, the group was struggling with internal disagreements and financial troubles. Its convention last year degenerated into a shouting match, requiring police to be called to keep the peace.
The SCLC is now on solid financial footing for the first time in years -- thanks in part to its plan to open global conflict resolution centers based on King's philosophy of nonviolent social change, Steele said in an earlier interview. He said centers already have opened in Dayton, Ohio, and Israel, and others are planned in China, Cuba, India and Italy.
The idea has resulted in corporate pledges and donations of more than US$650,000, allowing the Atlanta-based organization to get current on all expenses and payroll just six months after lights at the group's Atlanta headquarters were turned off for nonpayment, Steele said.
"We were on life support, but it didn't die," said Steele, a former Alabama state senator from Tuscaloosa.
Steele took over the presidency in November at the board's request after infighting and questionable management left the SCLC near bankruptcy and its leadership in despair. The full convention is expected to ratify his leadership at the annual gathering at the Hopewell Baptist Church.
Steele said as many as 7,000 people are expected to attend the convention, which will include addresses by former King aide Jesse Jackson and Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean.
The organization does not release membership figures, but its Internet site lists 75 chapters and affiliated organizations.
Founded by King and two associates in 1957 to fight legalized segregation in the South, the SCLC helped organize some of the defining moments of the civil rights era, including the March on Washington in 1963 and the Selma-to-Montgomery voting rights march two years later.
But the SCLC seemed to lose its way as the decades passed.
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