1957年1月10日,在聯合抵制蒙哥馬利公車運動胜利后,马丁·路德·金与贝亚德·鲁斯汀、埃拉·贝克等人邀请约60名黑人牧师和领袖到亚特兰大的埃比尼泽教堂集会[2]。1月11日,一群人举行首次会议,并在当天举行新闻发布会公布名称“Southern Negro Leaders Conference on Transportation and Nonviolent Integration”。
2月15日,组织在新奥尔良举行会议,改名“Negro Leaders Conference on Nonviolent Integration”,不久改名“Southern Negro Leaders Conference”[3]。金担任主席[4]。1957年8月举行的第三次会议上,该组织决定定为现名,将其关注范围从公共汽车扩展到一切形式的种族隔离[5]。
Fairclough, Adam. "The Preachers and the People: The Origins and Early Years of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, 1955-1959." Journal of Southern History (1986): 403–440. in JSTOR (页面存档备份,存于互联网档案馆)
Fairclough, Adam. To Redeem the Soul of America: The Southern Christian Leadership Conference and Martin Luther King, Jr. (University of Georgia Press, 2001)
Garrow, David. Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (1986); Pulitzer Prize
Marable, Manning; Mullings, Leith. Freedom: A Photographic History of the African American Struggle. London: Phaidon. 2002. ISBN 0-7148-4270-2.
Peake, Thomas R. Keeping the dream alive: A history of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference from King to the nineteen-eighties (P. Lang, 1987)