New Orleans

From churches to a world-famous restaurant, many meeting places in New Orleans served as ground zero to plan and organize protests during the Civil Rights Movement. Dooky Chase's Restaurant in Tremé, the nation's oldest African-American neighborhood, welcomed activists to Creole cuisine and a secret upstairs meeting room where extensive strategizing took place. At New Zion Baptist Church, The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was founded, electing Martin Luther King, Jr. as their first president as well as several officers from Louisiana, including Rev. A.L. Davis, the Rev. T.J. Jemison, Louis Berry and Israel Augustine Jr.