Organizations of CRM

1. S
Organizations
Leaders in the Civil Rights Movement

2. Congress of Racial Equality
(CORE)
S While this interracial organization was
founded in 1942, it flourished during the
early and mid-1960s. Initially engaging
in sit-in and picketing campaigns to
"desegregate public accommodations in
northern cities," CORE eventually
became a participant in the Freedom
Rides, Freedom Summer, and the Black
Power Movement. Using its organizing
skills to register voters and to gain
national attention for civil rights activists,
this organization helped to break down
a number of legal barriers that for
decades had prevented blacks and
other minorities from exercising their
constitutional rights.

3. National Association for the
Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP)
S Founded in 1909 by a group of influential whites hoping to counter the influence of Booker T. Washington and his
supporters, the NAACP sought to bring about legal solutions to America's race problems. Influential members like
Charles Hamilton Houston, W.E.B. Du Bois, Charles Spingarn, and Thurgood Marshall turned this once tiny
organization into what eventually became a litigating powerhouse. State Stallworth, a former NAACP president on
the Mississippi Gulf Coast, noted that he "wouldn't dare put marching and singing with litigation." He explained that
it was "all right for a little fellow down the street [to integrate] an ice cream parlor, but when you're talking about
integrating banks, unions, industries, discrimination in schools, marching and singing ain't going to get it." During his
tenure as president of the Gulf Coast NAACP, he met with Thurgood Marshall, who insisted that if blacks were not
willing to go to court then they shouldn't be wasting his time. Indeed it was the NAACP's litigious character that
made it difficult for many to join. This was especially the case for teachers, who of course, relied on white
administrators for their livelihoods. Hobert Kornegay, a NAACP activist in Meridian, noted that in most cases "a
teacher couldn't belong to the NAACP during that time and if they did, they'd have to use some other name. They'd
give the money, but they'd use some other name." Otherwise they'd lose their job. For this reason, many NAACP
members did their work in secret. NAACP activist and Pascagoula resident Franzetta Sanders summed up the
difference between her group and the more militant organizations like SNCC and CORE. She noted that the other
groups "lived among the community people and were involved with them, but we [NAACP] were more on the
conservative side. Our philosophy was "let's negotiate, and do this like one, two, three, four, five, because we've got
to know what we're going to do, and we've got to do it the way we're supposed to do it." That's the kind of summer
[1964] that was because they were on one side and we were on the other. We would say "OK. Now look y'all. We
need to think this out and do it this way because you can get hurt. You can disappear and we won't see you again."
But they more or less did whatever they were here to do, and they were welcomed in the community. But at the
same time we were busy doing what we were doing. And like I said we both were working toward the same goals,"
only with different tactics. Despite these differences, the NAACP made inroads into nearly every black community in

4. NAACP
S Its success had become so widespread that in the mid-
1950s, the state of Mississippi banned the organization
from operating within its borders. Despite this ban,
courageous leaders like Aaron Henry and Medgar Evers
continued to bring in recruits and to speak out against
injustices in the state. While an uncounted number of its
members and supporters were fired from their jobs, run
out of town, or killed for their organizing work, the NAACP
was able to win a number of lawsuits in the areas of
education, voter registration, and employment practices,
among others.

5. Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC)
S Founded on February 14,1957 by Martin Luther
King, Jr. and a host of other ministers, this
group sought to attack inequality and injustice
with the use of nonviolent direct action. While it
did not pioneer this tactic, SCLC successfully
used this method to desegregate lunch
counters, swimming pools, libraries, theaters,
and a host of other public accommodations.
With MLK as its president, the SCLC succeeded
in raising enough money to keep the Civil Rights
Movement under the watchful eye of the
American media for many years. Despite these
efforts, after King began to oppose openly the
Vietnam War, the organization's coffers began
to dwindle and as a result, the movement

6. Mississippi Freedom
Democratic Party
(MFDP)
S Established in April 1964 at COFO's monthly state convention, the
MFDP was organized to challenge the state's "regular"
Democratic party, which for decades had denied blacks the
opportunity to participate in the electoral process. While its
membership remained open to all Mississippians, the MFDP
primarily consisted of legally disfranchised blacks. After having
organized thousands of Mississippians, the MFDP hoped to
unseat the regular contingent of delegates at the 1964
Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City. After the White
House failed to persuade the group to wait for better times,
President Lyndon Johnson ordered the FBI and a number of close
aides to spy on MFDP strategy meetings.
S The failure of the MFDP to gain representation at this convention
signaled the decline of the civil rights movement and a rise in the
influence of black power advocates.

7. Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee
(SNCC)
S Created on the campus of Shaw
University in Raleigh, North Carolina,
on April 15, 1960, SNCC's activities
initially included coordinating
student-led sit-ins in Greensboro and
later throughout the Deep South,
supporting these activists, and
helping to publicize their activities.
With leaders like Stokely
Carmichael, Ruby Doris Smith
Robinson, and Julian Bond, among
others, the group eventually led the
charge against segregation and
discrimination in the U.S. Its efforts
during Freedom Summer led to the
registration of thousands of voters as
well as the creation of the MFDP.

8. Council of Federated
Organizations (COFO)
S The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was made up of SNCC, CORE,
SCLC, and number of smaller local groups. This organization was originally founded
in May 1961, but revamped in February 1962 to coordinate voter registration drives
among disfranchised blacks. Its largest contribution to the Freedom Summer Project
was "the organizing of blacks into a potent political force." Directed by Bob Moses,
COFO launched a "freedom vote" in 1963 to prove to the federal government and
others that blacks wanted to vote and would if given the opportunity. In mock elections
throughout the state, some 80,000 blacks symbolically voted for Aaron Henry, a local
activist running for governor, and Ed King, a white chaplain from Tougaloo College
who acted as his running mate. The success of this freedom vote helped set the
stage for the momentous changes that were to take place the following year. In 1964,
COFO coordinated the efforts of all the civil rights groups that launched summer-long
protests in Mississippi.

9. Works Cited
S http://www.usm.edu/crdp/html/cd/groups.htm