June 25, 1978
| Abraham Lincoln Davis, a founder of the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the first black city
councilman in New Orleans, Louisiana, died there at the age of sixty-three.
The pastor of the New Zion Baptist Church in New Orleans for forty-three years, Davis met there with Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists in 1957 to organize the SCLC. The group members chose King as their first president and Davis as vice president. Davis was elected to the New Orleans City Council in January 1975. |