Last summer, civil rights activity in the South was focussed on Mississippi and the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), a coalition of SNCC, CORE, NAACP, SCLC and other groups. But because several of the organizations were dissatisfied with COFO and because Mississippi was considered sufficiently "improved," the major civil rights groups decided to branch out into other Southern trouble spots. This summer each organization will be operating its separate summer project.

NAACP

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the only major civil rights group with local chapters throughout the South. The organization relies on these, rather than on paid staff members; in Mississippi, for example, it has been Aaron Henry, the president of the state NAACP chapters, not Charles Evers, the NAACP's Mississippi field secretary, who has really led the organization.

The Mississippi branch of the NAACP was one of the four civil rights groups in the COFO coalition (Henry was president of COFO.). But during the summer and increasingly into the winter, the Association became more and more unhappy with what it considered SNCC's domination of COFO. This dissatisfaction went beyond annoyance at playing second fiddle to SNCC, however. The basic disagreement was with SNCC's radicalism. Two weeks ago, the Mississippi branches of the NAACP withdrew from COFO.

Roy Wilkins, national president of the NAACP, took a swipe at COFO last week when he announced his group's summer plans. "This will be a campaign with the NAACP family in charge," he said. "It will be the case of NAACP sponsored workers going to work with our organizations in these states. This will not be strangers coming to Mississippi and moving alone into strange communities."

He announced that his organization would seek 800 to 1200 volunteers to join in voter registration drives in Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina. He added that local NAACP branches throughout the country would take charge of the recruiting and would also be asked to contribute funds to pay the $500,000 tab for the project.

For further information, contact: Helen Todd, NAACP, 451 Massachusetts Ave., Boston.

CORE

The Congress of Racial Equality has been so active in the North that people often forget that it is deeply involved in the South. CORE sprang to national attention in 1961 as the organization which sponsored the Freedom Rides and the first national group to organize sit-ins.

As these two projects show, CORE stresses direct action and has formed more local direct action projects than any other organization, except perhaps SNCC. In may ways, in fact, the two groups form an alliance; their workers are younger and angrier than those in the NAACP and SCLC and they are often impatient with compromises and lengthy court actions. Increasingly CORE and SNCC workers are coming to regard nonviolence as a tactic rather than a philosophy.

Unlike the NAACP and SCLC, which contributed few or no workers to the staff of the Mississippi Summer Project, CORE had control of one of the five Congressional districts in Mississippi, and worked side by side with SNCC in organizing the state-wide Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

In addition to its recent Mississippi work, CORE has been concentrating its efforts in Louisiana and the Carolinas, where it has had projects for over three years. CORE's biggest effort this Summer will be in Louisiana, for which it is seeking 250 volunteers to set up offices in 12 to 15 counties. The workers will organize freedom schools and community centers, like those in Mississippi last summer, as well as doing voter registration.

The South Carolina project, which will concentrate largely on voter registration, will be aimed at defeating Senator Strom Thurmond (R.S.C.) in 1966. Here CORE wants only 35 volunteers, who will work in three Congressional districts. Another 20 volunteers will join University of Florida students and local Negroes in a project in Northern Florida which began in January, 1964.

CORE has 50 paid staff workers in the South (who will direct the projects), but all the volunteers are expected to be self-supporting. (Organization officials estimate that a worker should expect to spend between $15 and $25 per week.) The entire summer should cost CORE, currently $75,000 in debt, about $70,000. An orientation session for all volunteers is planned for June 10 through 15, in Baton Rouge, La.

For further information and appli- cations, contact: CORE, 2209 Dryades St., New Orleans, La.