Its primary purposes are to publish a professional journal, to improve teaching, to promote interest and research in theoretical and practical political problems, to encourage communication and to develop standards of competence and respect between persons engaged in the professional study and practice of government and politics.
The Southern Political Science Association was founded in 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia.
[2] Its first president was Cullen B. Gosnell, a professor of Political Science at Emory University.
[2] In 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. gave an address at the SPSA meeting in Durham, North Carolina.
[2] By 1973, its president was Samuel DuBois Cook, an African-American political scientist.