[1] The NCDPP was originally called the Emergency Committee for Southern Political Prisoners (ECSPP).
[2] The Committee aimed to "aid workers [to] organize and defend themselves against terror and suppression",[3] and was described as an "'invading body' whose mission is to enter the Kentucky coal-fields, 'inform the American public of what is going on' and 'persuade officials ... to a more equitable course of action'.
"[4] The organization was influential in defending civil liberties, such as the Scottsboro Boys in Alabama,[2][5] where nine African American teenagers were wrongly accused of raping a white woman, even in the face of medical evidence to the contrary.
[6] A Statement of the Purposes of the National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners stated that:[3] The National Committee for the Defense of Political Prisoners has been formed to aid workers to organize and to defend themselves against terror and suppression ...
[3]The group was considered one of eleven "subversive organizations",[7] drawn up on 3 April 1947 at the request of Tom C.