“Bigger Than Montgomery” 149    After inspecting the damage, King and Abernathy returned to Atlanta to resume discussions with a group of southern pastors who would form the core of what would later be called the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Like any new organization, the SCLC needed mon- ey to launch its ambitious program. As the newest face of the civil rights struggle, King became their most effective fund-raiser, as he traveled around the nation sharing the Montgomery story. In spite of these re- sponsibilities, King intended to more fully engage his pastorate at Dexter once the boycott ended. He also remained president of the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA), which sought to develop a road map that would lead to additional gains in their city. The bombings reminded King that the local struggle he had been fighting for the last thirteen months was far from over. Given the intransigence of white supremacy, moving forward in Montgomery would prove a difficult challenge. The wave of violence alarmed Montgomery’s white citizens. A group that included Montgomery Advertiser editor Grover Hall, several white pastors, and the Men of Montgomery issued a statement condemning the bombings. City police responded to the outcry by arresting seven Ku Klux Klan members, several of whom later confessed to the crimes. One of the men even showed police the stock of explosives they had used, but an all-white jury later acquitted them of all charges. Despite indignant rhetoric in the wake of the violence, white Montgomery lacked the col- 2 lective will to bring the perpetrators to justice. Once the bus boycott became a national story, Montgomery became a flashpoint for white backlash. The White Citizens Council grew expo- nentially, bombings of churches and parsonages became far too common, and economic reprisals were the order of the day. Following the Supreme Court ruling and the official integration of city buses in Montgomery, the backlash only intensified. Many local whites were determined that the victory garnered through the bus boycott would not be replicated. De- veloping a sustained local movement following the boycott would be that much more difficult because the white community would not again be guilty of underestimating the capacity of Montgomery’s African Ameri- can citizens to galvanize for a cause. Their primary weapon was to terror- ize blacks through consistent acts of violence. In his Sunday sermon following the bombings, King struggled to