Ralph David Abernathy Sr. was an American civil rights activist and Baptist minister. He was ordained in the Baptist tradition in 1948. Being a leader of the civil rights movement, he was a close friend and mentor of Martin Luther King Jr. He collaborated with King and E. D. Nixon to create the Montgomery Improvement Association, which led to the Montgomery bus boycott and co-created and was an executive board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). He became president of the SCLC following the assassination of King in 1968; he led the Poor People's Campaign in Washington, D.C., as well as other marches and demonstrations for disenfranchised Americans. He also served as an advisory committee member of the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE).

Headlines from March 11, 1926

Amundsen's Airship Makes a Night Flight; Norge Is Successful in Long Test in Italy

Salzburg Calls Fire Brigade To Put Out Aurora Borealis

Former Kaiser, Tired of Doorn, Wants to Go to Switzerland

John S. Seymour, 77, Stricken in Street; Ex-Commissioner of Patents in Bellevue

SHOTS FLY IN ESCAPE FROM HEADQUARTERS; Hold-Up Suspects Fell Captor in Centre Street and Flee at Fifty Miles an Hour. OFFICIALS, CLERKS, RUSH OUT Pursuit, Tangled in Traffic, Fails -- Eight of Alleged Band of Robbers Are Caught. SHOTS FLY IN ESCAPE AT HEADQUARTERS

Notable Births