Voter Education Project

Voter Education Project (VEP) raised and distributed foundation funds to civil rights organizations for voter education and registration work in the

Civil Rights Movement would shift their focus away from demonstrations and more towards the support of voter registration.^[1]

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.^[3]

Founding

Believing that the flood of negative news stories about race-relations in America were caused by the wave of student protests, President

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.^[1]

Activities

Following the

Voting Rights Act of 1965, it was reported that VEP-funded registration drives succeeded in registering an additional 175,000 new black voters.^[1]

The VEP continued funding voter registration, education, and research efforts in the South until 1992 under subsequent directors

Vernon Jordan, John Lewis and Ed Brown.^[2]

Effect

The VEP helped make great inroads in the registration of voters, especially in rural areas.[1] Contrary to the initial hopes of the Kennedy administration, the VEP did not reduce the violent realities of resistance to integration found in the South and highlighted by news stations around the world. In the Deep South, white resistance to Black voting rights turned out to be even more violent than their opposition to integrating lunch counters and bus depots. Instead of diminishing, news stories of police repression, brutality, bombings, and murders increased as white political leaders, the Ku Klux Klan, and White Citizen Councils used arrests, terrorism, and economic retaliation to prevent Blacks from voting.^[5]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g The Voter Education Project, King Research & Education Institute ~ Stanford University.
^ ^a ^b "Voter Education Project". Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20 April 2020.
^ Cold War Civil Rights: Race and the Image of American Democracy, by Mary L. Dudziak.
^ Parting the Waters: American in the King Years 1954-63, by Taylor Branch.
^ "Documenting Reconstruction Violence". Equal Justice Initiative Reports. Retrieved 2024-03-06.

External links

"Digital Collection: Voter Education Project Organizational Records". RADAR.
Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library
.
Voter Education Project, Civil Rights Movement Archive
"Education as Activism: The Voter Education Project in the Civil Rights Movement", Evan Faulkenbury

[mlk-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g The Voter Education Project, King Research & Education Institute ~ Stanford University.

[ga-encyclopedia-2] "Voter Education Project". Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved 20 April 2020.

[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] "Documenting Reconstruction Violence". Equal Justice Initiative Reports. Retrieved 2024-03-06.

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