SCOPE Voter Registration Drive Launched
The Summer Community Organization and Political Education (SCOPE) Project, a voter registration project organized by Martin Luther King’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), was launched on this day.
Funded by private foundations, the project was focused on the deep south where African-American voter registration was the lowest in the nation. It was designed as a moderate alternative to more militant civil rights efforts, notably those of Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
On the founding of SNCC, go to April 15, 1960. For the censoring of SNCC leader John Lewis’ angry words at the famous 1963 March on Washington, go to August 28, 1963. And for SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael’s “Black Power” speech, go to June 16, 1966.
SNCC, along with C.O.R.E., was the principal organizer of Freedom Summer, which brought about 1,000 college students to Mississippi for a voter registration campaign. The members of Freedom Summer –James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Mickey Schwerner– were murdered by white racists on June 21, 1964.
Learn more about SCOPE: http://crdl.usg.edu/events/scope_project/?Welcome
Read: Clayborne Carson, In Struggle: SNCC and the Black Awakening of the 1960s (1981)
Examine original SCOPE documents: http://www.crmvet.org/info/scophome.htm
Read: Sally Belfrage, Freedom Summer (1965)
Find and read original documents at the Civil Rights Movement Archive