Troy & Pike Pike County SCLC Scope Project, 1965

In the weeks following the Selma to Montgomery March, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference planned a widespread southern voter registration campaign. Anticipating passage of the new Voting Rights Act, the Summer Community Organization and Political Education project called upon collegians to travel to the South and assist in registering more than a half-million eligible African Americans to vote. Hundreds of students from nearly sixty schools participated, and SCOPE director Rev. Hosea Williams had been beaten in Selma alongside Pike County native John Lewis on Bloody Sunday. On July 9, 1965, SCOPE workers arrived in Pike County and set up offices in Troy and Brundidge. Throughout the summer, these young activists and local volunteers canvassed African American communities, held mass meetings across the county, and transported hundreds of people to the Pike County Courthouse to register, even as many endured intimidation, threats of violence, and job loss. Passage of the Voting Rights Act in August 1965 aided the effort by outlawing many forms of suppression used by states like Alabama, including literacy tests and the poll tax. During the summer of 1965, the Pike County SCOPE project registered nearly 1,000 new voters.

Troy, Alabama · United States