Editing Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (section)

==1962 voter registration campaigns==
As a result of meetings brokered by the Kennedy Administration with large liberal foundations, the [[Voter Education Project]] (VEP) was formed in early 1962 to channel funds into voter drives in the eleven Southern states. Inducted by sit-in campaigns and hardened in the Freedom Rides, many student activists saw VEP as a government attempt to co-opt their movement. [[Lonnie C. King Jr.]], a student from Morehouse College in Atlanta, felt that "by rechanneling its energies" what the Kennedys were "trying to do was kill the Movement."<ref name="Voter Education Project launches">{{Cite web|url=https://snccdigital.org/events/voter-education-project-launches/|title=Voter Education Project launches|website=SNCC Digital Gateway|language=en|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref> But others were already convinced that obtaining the right to vote was the key to unlocking political power for Black Americans. Older Black southerners had been pressing SNCC to move in this direction for some time. Mississippi NAACP leader [[Amzie Moore]] had tabled a voter registration drive at the SNCC's second conference in October 1960.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://snccdigital.org/events/amzie-moore-puts-voter-registration-on-table/|title=Amzie Moore puts voter registration on table at SNCC Atlanta conference|website=SNCC Digital Gateway|language=en|access-date=2019-12-17}}</ref>

A split over the priority to be accorded voter registration was avoided by Ella Baker's intervention. She suggested that the organization create two distinct wings: one for direct action (which Diane Nash was to lead) and the other for voter registration. But the white violence visited in the summer of 1961 on the first registration efforts (under the direction of [[Bob Moses (activist)|Bob Moses]]) in [[McComb, Mississippi]], including the murder of activist [[Herbert Lee (activist)|Herbert Lee]], persuaded many that in the Deep South voter registration was as direct a challenge to white supremacy as anything they had been doing before. "If you went into Mississippi and talked about voter registration they're going to hit you on the side of the head and that," Reggie Robinson, one of the SNCC's first field secretaries, quipped is "as direct as you can get."<ref name="Voter Education Project launches"/>

In 1962, Bob Moses garnered further support for SNCC's efforts by forging a coalition, the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), with, among other groups, the NAACP and the National Council of Churches.<ref>{{Cite encyclopedia |url=https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/council-federated-organizations-cofo|title=Council of Federated Organizations |encyclopedia=King Encyclopedia |date=27 April 2017 |publisher=[[Stanford University#Research centers and institutes|Stanford University {{!}} Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute]] |access-date=2019-12-04 }}</ref> With VEP and COFO funding SNCC was able to expand its voter registration efforts into the [[Mississippi Delta]] around [[Greenwood, Mississippi|Greenwood]], Southwest [[Georgia (U.S. state)|Georgia]] around [[Albany, Georgia|Albany]], and the Alabama [[Black Belt (region of Alabama)|Black Belt]] around [[Selma, Alabama|Selma]]. All of these projects endured police harassment and arrests; KKK violence including shootings, bombings, and assassinations; and economic sanctions against those blacks who dared to try to register.<ref>{{Cite web |title=A SNCC Activist Describes Police Intimidation in the Voter Registration Campaign · SHEC: Resources for Teachers |url=https://shec.ashp.cuny.edu/items/show/982 |access-date=2023-10-13 |website=shec.ashp.cuny.edu}}</ref>