COFO Central Offices

From this building, the Council of Federated Organizations coordinated the efforts of SNCC, NAACP, CORE, SCLC, and other activist and community groups from early 1963 through early 1965 as the headquarters and "nerve center" of the Mississippi freedom struggle. Originally an ad hoc group and formally organized in February 1962, it brought together leaders including President Aaron Henry, Program Director Bob Moses, Assistant Program Director David Dennis, Secretary Carsie Hall, and NAACP field secretary Medgar Evers, who had seen the challenges activists faced and the need for civil rights solidarity. Its work focused on voter registration and citizenship education, while Moses and Dennis supervised this office, mentored young activists, and helped build a strong grassroots base. Despite frequent brutal attacks, key volunteers and SNCC and CORE field secretaries kept the office open through the 1963 Freedom Vote and the Freedom Summer of 1964 campaigns. In 1963, COFO organized the Freedom Vote, a statewide mock election in which 80,000 African Americans cast votes for Aaron Henry and the Reverend Ed King. That effort expanded into the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party and its challenge to the Democratic Convention in Atlantic City, helping bring about an integrated delegation at the next convention and new rules ending racial and other exclusion. COFO also created the 1964 Mississippi Summer Project, better known as Freedom Summer, during which nearly one thousand volunteers from across America joined a broad voter registration campaign that drew international attention to the civil rights movement. It also administered Freedom Schools across the state, where children and adults studied African American history and took innovative classes in science, math, music, and literature. Among those working with the program directors were SNCC and CORE field secretaries such as Lawrence Guyot, as well as volunteer and advisor Allard K. Lowenstein, who helped recruit college student volunteers through contacts at Yale and Stanford, while SNCC recruited additional black and white men and women from schools throughout America and COFO expanded Freedom Summer with support from national medical, religious, social service, labor, and other groups.

Jackson, Mississippi · United States