On March 29, 1960, the Committee to Defend Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Freedom in the South paid for this advertisement entitled “Heed Their Rising Voices” in the New York Times. The action led to a libel lawsuit by Montgomery Commissioner of Public Affairs Lester B. Sullivan against the newspaper and four civil rights leaders who signed the advertisement: Ralph Abernathy, Solomon S. Seay Sr., Fred Shuttlesworth, and Joseph E. Lowery.
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