SCLC was founded in 1957, emerging out of the Montgomery Improvement Association, which had successfully orchestrated the bus boycott. Led by Martin Luther King, Jr. as president, until his death in 1968, and by Ralph Abernathy, SCLC advocated non-violent resistance to segregation and racial oppression. In 1960 it helped establish a student organization, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), which would challenge the parent organization’s philosophy of non-violence and embrace Black Power. Until the mid-1960s the influence of SCLG was felt in all the cities of the South; but it was unable to have similar success in northern cities like Chicago.