Martin Luther King enjoyed a successful leadership of the SCLC during 1956 till 1968, and his "phase" involved in advancing Black Civil Rights was a major turning point. Black Americans had been striving to improve their social and economic position, only to be thwarted and remain slaves. King's appointment as leader of the 1955 Montgomery Bus Boycott, where Black activists refused to use Montgomery bus services, giving no choice but to desegregate bus services as Blacks were a large source of income, was a step in launching King's Civil Rights career. King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957, adopting a non-violent protest method across the Southern United States. The first major SCLC outing was Albany, Georgia in 1961 in a protest over segregation. When protestors refused to disperse, they were arrested and fined, with King refusing to pay, subsequently leading to his jailing. The local police and protesting whites were prevented from being violent so plans to provoke violence failed.
Birmingham, Alabama came to King's attention in 1963 and was a bigger success. Most grass-root SCLC activists were based here, and Birmingham was renowned for it's racist Whites and Police Chief Bull Conner. During the protest, Connor set police dogs and officers on protestors and arrested as many as possible, including five hundred children and King, who was placed in solitary confinement. President Kennedy learnt of the turmoil in Birmingham and believed it was damaging the United States reputation. The SCLC had shown the unpleasantness of segregation in Birmingham to the whole country, and stores in Birmingham quickly became desegregated. Birmingham was also a crucial factor in persuading the Kennedy administration to pass the Civil Rights legislation of 1964. King believed a march would encourage the passing of this bill, so the SCLC, NAACP and two hundred and fifty thousand marchers, sixty two thousand, five hundred who were white, marched on Washington in 1963, where King delivered his "I have a dream- speech.
