Mississippi authorities attacked the registration project more actively by shutting off distribution of federal food surpluses in two Delta counties. COFO workers, confronted with a famine in the heart of their registration area, sent out nationwide appeals for emergency relief. At first only restricted circles responded—Freedom Ride veterans, members of civil rights groups, students who drove South with carloads of donated canned goods—but the project grew over a bitter winter as grim facts reinforced Mississippi’s unsavory reputation.
