SCOPE = Summer Community Organization & Political Education
The SCOPE Project of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) was a bold voter registration civil rights initiative conducted from 1965-66 in 120 counties in six southern states.
Lanny was recruited to join the Summer 1965 SCOPE project while a freshman in the winter of 1964 along with his college roommate Phil McKenna and several other UCSB students.
Read about Lanny’s experience in the UCSB SCOPE Project of 1965 at the Civil Rights Movement Veterans website (www.crmvet.org).
Here is a home movie by SCOPE worker Ivan Rasmussen converted to video of a Voting Rights March in Sussex County, VA, in July of 1965. Lanny can be seen at 00:37.
Current board president of SCOPE50, John Reynolds, wrote an excellent memoir about his experience in the Civil Rights Movement including the SCOPE Project. It’s entitled The Fight For Freedom.
The story of the SCOPE Project is told in detail in Willy Leventhal’s 2005 book, The SCOPE of Freedom. It is no longer in print but still available online.
