Succeeds King as Rights Leader: Today Reverend Ralph Abernathy, above, took over leadership of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, a Civil Rights Movement, following yesterday's assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis, Tennessee. Reverend Abernathy, along with King's widow and others, accompanied the body from Memphis to Atlanta.

Ralph Abernathy (1926-1990) was a Baptist minister who, with Martin Luther King, Jr., organized the historic Montgomery Bus Boycotts. Abernathy co-founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was a major Civil Rights figure, serving as close adviser to King and later assuming SCLC Presidency.

On recto: typewritten title and date.
On verso: manuscript title, date and newspaper stamp.

Wire photographs were originally transmitted over phonelines, then later, by satellite. They were first used in the early 1920s. Associated Press became a leader with this. After pigment touch-ups, etc., the print is put into a drum (like a drum scanner). The image gets converted into audio tones that are transmitted. The tones are received and beamed onto photo-sensitive paper. Wire photographs are copies without originals---they are hybrid, transmitted objects. (Britt Salvesen, Curator and Department Head, Photography Department, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, March 30-31, 2022)

This object has the following keywords:

• Assassinations
• Civil Rights Movements
• Death
• Hate
• Hate crimes
• Injustice
• Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Memphis
• Racial Discrimination
• Reverend Ralph Abernathy
• Reverend Ralph Abernathy
• Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• Image Dimensions: 7 3/16 x 4 in. (18.26 x 10.16 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen
• Sheet Dimensions: 9 3/16 x 4 11/16 in. (23.34 x 11.91 cm) Measured by Hudson, Karen