*The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was formed on this date in 1962. They were a coalition of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi. The COFO was the effort of local activists and indigenous leadership.
The prelude to the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi began after World War II when veterans such as Medgar Evers, his brother Charles Evers, Aaron Henry, and Amzie Moore returned home from fighting Nazi Germany. These veterans led and revitalized defunct chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), SNCC, and SCLC throughout the state. Adding Bob Moses and Dave Dennis, in particular, felt that COFO's primary function was to provide native Mississippians with their own organization, which they could control.
The COFO was formed to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the state and oversee the distribution of funds from the Voter Education Project. It was instrumental in forming the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP). In the context of the wider 20th-century Mississippi civil rights Movement, COFO was a logical and necessary step toward accomplishing common goals. Like the whole American Civil Rights Movement, COFO's ultimate effectiveness is debated, but for a time, it brought together rivals and people of competing philosophies to build a better society, disbanding on December 31, 1965.
