The Colored Methodist Episcopal Church founded Miles College in Fairfield in 1898. During the 1960s, President Lucius Pitts encouraged students, faculty and staff to become involved in the Civil Rights Movement. In early 1962, students wanted to boycott downtown stores because lunch counters were segregated and few blacks were clerks. Pitts, who developed a good relationship with white business leaders, organized meetings between students and merchants. Some businesses integrated water fountains and elevators, but rejected full integration. With the support of Pitts and faculty members Rev. Abraham Lincoln Woods Jr., and Jonathan McPherson Sr., among others, Student Government Association president Frank Dukes led students in a successful selective buying campaign at department stores and major retailers in early 1963 because a city ordinance prohibited the use of the term boycott. To bolster efforts to dismantle Birmingham's segregation ordinances in 1963, Miles College students joined activist Rev. Fred L. Shuttlesworth in inviting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to participate in demonstrations. On Good Friday, April 12, Miles students and faculty, including Dr. Ralph Galt, Rev. Nathaniel Lindsey, Rev. James Ezekiel Robinson and Jonathan McPherson Sr., were among 50 arrested with King for violating a court order against demonstrations without a permit. Other students were arrested at Memorial Park in Titusville for praying without permission. During demonstrations May 2-7, police used fire hoses and dogs to attack hundreds of demonstrators, including children and Miles students. Several thousand were jailed. The school community triggered a test case that desegregated city buses. A Miles professor was the first African-American to pass the civil service test for police patrolman in the city. Campus activists contributed to the end of segregation in Birmingham in 1963, increased voter registration, and hastened passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.