Voter Education Project

Background

Starting in 1960, the explosion of student-led activism of sit-ins and Freedom Rides during the civil rights movement created a public relations and foreign policy embarrassment for the Kennedy administration. In the early 1960s, Asian and African nations were liberating themselves from generations of racist colonial rule, and both the U.S. and Soviet Union were fiercely competing with each other in a Cold War struggle for the support of these new nations. The worldwide news stories, photos, and TV images of racist brutality, burning buses, and police suppression of Black civil rights undercut the State Department's effort to convince Asian and African nations to align themselves with Free World camp in international affairs.

Founding

Believing that the flood of negative news stories about race-relations in America were caused by the wave of student protests, President John F. Kennedy and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy urged civil rights leaders and organizations to engage in voter registration rather than nonviolent direct-action demonstrations. Unofficially, they convinced several non-profit foundations to fund voter registration work in the South. The Taconic, Field, New World, and Stern Family foundations agreed to contribute significant funds. To raise, administer, and distribute the money, the NAACP, Congress of Racial Equality, Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee formed the Voter Education Project (VEP) under the auspices of the non-profit Southern Regional Council.

Activities

Following the Albany Movement, the VEP had registered close to 500 voters in Albany, Georgia, within a period of two weeks. The group struggled in its early period and in early 1963, the SCLC was almost suspended from the organization due to inadequate reports about the group's funding. By the end of 1964, however, the VEP distributed close to $900,000 (equal to $5,700,000 in 2006 dollars) to civil rights groups doing voter registration in the South and almost 800,000 new Black Southern voters were added to the rolls. Following the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it was reported that VEP-funded registration drives succeeded in registering an additional 175,000 new black voters.

The VEP continued funding voter registration, education, and research efforts in the South until 1992 under subsequent directors Randolph Blackwell, Vernon Jordan, John Lewis and Ed Brown.

Effect

The VEP helped make great inroads in the registration of voters, especially in rural areas.

References

References

1. "Voter Education Project".
2. Weinberg, Jack. (1990). "Students and Civil Rights in the 1960s". History of Education Quarterly.
3. ''Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy'', by [[Mary L. Dudziak]].
4. ''Parting the Waters: American in the King Years 1954-63'', by Taylor Branch.
5. [https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/voter-education-project-vep The Voter Education Project], King Research & Education Institute ~ Stanford University.
6. "Documenting Reconstruction Violence".