ATLANTA--Several dozen members of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference gathered here from across the South on Monday to demand the resignations of two board members accused of financial and ethical violations.The SCLC is the civil rights organization founded by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The board members have been accused of diverting at least $569,000 from the group into privately-controlled bank accounts, according to a letter written by the board’s vice chairman and obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
One of the two men, Rev. Raleigh Trammell, the board chairman, has also been accused of sexual harassment by a female employee.
“These people have literally hijacked the SCLC,” said Art Rocker, the chairman of the organization’s Florida chapter and an organizer of the protest at the national headquarters.
“We need to vote them out of office and get back to doing what we do best.”
It has been a tumultuous year for the group, which was founded in 1957 by leaders of the Civil Rights Movement and served as one of the era’s primary protest organizers.
In December, angry board members removed the two men--Mr. Trammell and Spiver Gordon, the treasurer--from office.
But on Thursday, a county judge in Atlanta said the decision violated the organization’s constitution, because it was made by telephone and had not involved all 44 board members.
The two men were reinstated, and now frustrated members across the country are calling for another vote to remove them.
On Monday, they marched along Auburn Avenue, the Black section of Atlanta where King’s former church is located.
They came from Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Missippi with signs reading, “Time for You to Go,” and calling the board members thieves and liars.
For Larry Louis, 58, a mental health worker from Milledgeville, Ga., and a longtime SCLC member, it felt unusual to be protesting against his own group.
“You’ve got to hold everyone to the same standard, a moral standard, even your own group,” Mr. Louis said. “I’m angry. If the accusations are true, that money could have gone to Haiti. It could have gone to the homeless.”
A spokesman for the SCLC declined to discuss the specifics of the case, which prompted an internal investigation, but she said members were encouraged to express their opinions.
“We are going to follow whatever the court requires us to do, and be governed by the word of God,” said the spokesman, K. Renee Richardson.
Mr. Trammell and Mr. Gordon could not be reached for comment, and calls to their lawyer were not returned.
In a Dec. 15 letter to the board, Sylvia Tucker, the vice chairman, wrote that “more than $569,000 may have been diverted from the national organization to an SCLC board account managed and controlled by” Mr. Trammell and Mr. Gordon, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mr. Rocker said he had asked the attorney general of Alabama, where Mr. Gordon lives, to investigate the case.
In the sexual harassment case, DaMisha Douglas, an employee in Dayton, Ohio, has said she was pressured into a sexual relationship with Rev. Trammell.
