ATLANTA - A board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference who has provided legal counsel to the group says the Rev. Bernice King has been hesitant to take the helm of the organization amid legal wrangling and infighting.

Kathryn Weathers Belger testified in Fulton County Superior Court on Wednesday that King, who was elected the eighth president of the civil rights group in October, wanted her name and likeness removed from the SCLC's Web site in February.

"She hadn't taken office, she didn't authorize it ... She had never given her consent," Weathers Belger said. "She was rightfully very upset about it."

Weathers Belger says the SCLC wanted King to assume office in February, but she says King communicated through an attorney that she was concerned about the ongoing litigation and was not yet ready to have detailed discussions about taking office.

King still has not been installed as president and has remained largely silent as the bickering has dragged on. She has not publicly taken sides in the dispute or weighed in on the legal battle.

The SCLC splintered in recent months as ongoing federal, local and internal investigations into allegations of financial mismanagement by its chairman and treasurer have divided allegiances and created dueling boards of directors.

The group is in court this week asking a federal judge to intervene to determine who is in charge. Attorneys for both sides claiming to be the SCLC's true board of directors began making their case in Fulton County Superior Court Wednesday morning.

Each side says its interpretation of the group's constitution and bylaws is correct, and accuses the other side of manipulating and ignoring the rules.

The hearing will continue Thursday. Confusion over who is in charge of the SCLC has paralyzed the group and distracted it from social justice issues.

Foot soldiers who once worked alongside each other in the struggle for civil rights sat on opposite sides of the courtroom, about half wearing yellow ribbons pinned to their lapels - a sign of solidarity for the plaintiffs in the case, including the Rev. Sylvia Tucker and board members Bernard Lafayette and Randall Gaines, represented by attorney Charles Mathis.

Mathis told the judge that some board members have been acting illegally and in a manner that has been "unfair and arrogant." In recent months, the SCLC's bank accounts have been frozen and the locks on the downtown Atlanta headquarters changed as confusion reigned and individuals acted first and later asked for permission.

Others lined up behind the defendants, the Rev. Wilburt Shanklin, the Rev. Curtis Harris and the Rev. Markel Hutchins. Shanklin and Harris, both longtime board members and executive officers in the organization, attended Wednesday's hearing.

Hutchins, an activist who maintains he was recently appointed to the board and named interim president of the SCLC, was not in the courtroom.

"This case is about a struggle for the life and the very soul of the SCLC," attorney Thelma Wyatt Moore told Judge Alford Dempsey. "Some people have said SCLC ought to just die. We are asking you to give the resuscitation order."

The split revolves around ongoing federal, local and internal investigations into Chairman Raleigh Trammell and Treasurer Spiver Gordon over allegations of financial mismanagement. Trammell and Gordon have fought attempts to remove them from the board of directors, and two groups are claiming to be the true leaders of the SCLC, holding separate board meetings and both planning the group's annual convention scheduled for August.

The hearing exposed a group that does not always understand or follow its own constitution and bylaws. Testimony raised questions about how the SCLC went about calling official meetings, making decisions about the organization, how funds were spent and even the election of King.