[3][4][5] Durr, the vice chair, along with four executive secretaries, Sylvia Beitscher, Frances Wheeler Sayler, Katherine Shryver and Sarah d'Avila ran the organization.
[3][5] The organization focused upon introducing legislation to the United States Congress which would abolish payment of poll tax as a voting prerequisite in federal elections.
[2][3][5][6] They convinced Congressman Lee Geyer (D-California) and Senator Claude Pepper (D-Florida) to introduce bills to the US Congress in 1941 to abolish the poll tax.
[2][5] Though Pepper's bill resulted in a full-scale congressional debate on federal protection of voting rights, in 1942, it was only successful in waiving the poll tax payment on absentee ballots of soldiers.
[7][8] The Cold War climate, which brought about the Red Scare, McCarthyism, and investigations by the House Un-American Activities Committee, made many of the members of the NCAPT targets.