Hosea Williams, an aide to SCLC chairman Martin Luther King Jr., was joined by white college students for various short-term civil rights projects.
Dr. King and SCLC leaders decided to recruit white college students to journey south to join with local activists.
If necessary, they could participate in organizing street demonstrations to help put political pressure on Congress, should the proposed Voting Rights Act of 1965 be met with congressional resistance and stalling by segregationist forces.
During the spring of 1965, Dr. King assigned Williams, SCLC's Director of Voter Registration and Political Education, to lead the SCOPE Project.
Other faculty included: Vernon Jordan of the Urban League; Ralph Helstein, president of the Meatpackers Union; John Doar, US Assistant Attorney for Civil Rights; Michael Harrington, author of The Other America, about the problems of persistent poverty in the US; civil rights lawyer Charles Morgan, Jr., and Dr. King, Young, Rev.
Based on this and related data, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) conducted investigations and deployed Federal voter registrars to counties that denied African Americans' right to vote.
They engaged in nonviolent demonstrations to dramatize the denial of voting rights, and the refusal of local jurisdictions to remove "white only" signs and desegregate public accommodations in accordance with the 1964 Act.
About 40 of these college volunteers were invited by Dr. King, Williams, and his assistant, Gwendolyn Green, to join the SCLC Field Staff.
SCOPE volunteers were subject to violence, tear-gassing, harassment, and threats with guns on numerous occasions, according to "incident reports" from the project's administrative records.
On July 15, in Chatham County, Georgia, SCOPE worker Shirley Savaris was threatened by a white man with a gun and told to leave town.
On July 28 in Sussex County, Virginia, two SCOPE workers, Gary Imsland and Elke Wiedenroth, were run off the road while returning from a church meeting, and threatened by a white man armed with a shotgun.
On August 18 in Berkeley County, South Carolina, two SCOPE volunteers were beaten after attempting to integrate restaurants in Monk's Corner.
Within the ranks of SCOPE students, there have been many who became leaders in various fields, including: Dr. Jo Freeman, author/journalist; Father James Groppi, activist Catholic priest; Dr. Barbara Jean Emerson, college administrator; Elizabeth Omilami, actress and current CEO of Hosea's Feed The Hungry and Homeless Inc, a non-profit that provides food and assistance to the poor in Atlanta; Rabbi Moshe Shur, Hillel Rabbi at Queens College; Peter Geffen, international educator and founder of the Abraham Heschel Day School in NYC; Dr. Dean Savage, chair, Dept of Sociology, Queens College;, Dr. James Simons, M.D., oncologist, Kaiser Hospital, Oakland, California, Judy Van Allen, Institute For African Development, Cornell University; Dick Reavis, professor, NC State University; Dr. Bruce Mirhoff, professor, SUNY; Bruce Hartford, co-founder Civil Rights Vets website; Beth Pickens, attorney – NYC; Joel Siegel, film critic for Good Morning America; Rick Tuttle, served for 16 years as Los Angeles City Controller; and others.
On another occasion, he told a reunion of civil rights Movement volunteers, including SCOPE veterans, "Most of you were taking your lives in your hands by associating with us.
"[citation needed] Books about SCOPE by its participants include: This Bright Light of Ours: Stories from the Voting Rights Fight, Maria Gitin, University of Alabama Press, Feb 2014.