Twin City Observer

NAACP MEMBERSHIP RALLY KICK-OFF

Rev. Ralph D. Abernathy will speak in St. Paul on Thursday (today) during the mass membership rally of the St. Paul Branch NAACP. The program will be held at St. James A.M.E. Church, corner of Dale st., and Central Avenue, and will officially open the local branch's 1957 membership drive.

Rev. Abernathy is the founder and vice president of the Montgomery Improvement Association, the organization that was successful in the bus boycott. He is presently serving as southern director for the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom, which will be conducted in Washington, D. C., on May 17, in commemoration of the Supreme Court's decision outlawing segregation in the public schools.

Rev. Abernathy was born in Linden, Ala., and received his early training in the public schools of Marengo County. Before graduating from high school, he successfully passed college entrance examinations and was admitted to Alabama State College in Montgomery where he graduated with the Mid-Century Class in 1950 among the highest ranking students of his class. He received his graduate training from Atlanta University in the School of Sociology.
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For a year and a half he served on the faculty of Alabama State College as a Personnel Counselor and instructor in the Social Science Department.

Rev. Abernathy presently serves as pastor of Montgomery's Historic First Baptist Church, the church where the National Baptist Convention, the largest Negro religious organization in the world, was organized. He holds several offices in local organizations as well as the treasury of the newly organized Southern Leadership Conference.

Rev. Abernathy, a member of the NAACP, is on the Executive Board of the local branch.

He is a member of Alpha Kappa Delta Honor Fraternity (Sociological) and Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity. He is also a member of the American Sociological Society.