The Southern Regional Council (SRC), originally called the Commission on Interracial Cooperation (CIC), was founded in 1919 in response to increased racial tensions between returning African American World War I veterans and the American public, who expected them to resume their roles as second-class citizens, resulting in violent race riots. In 1943, the CIC held a series of conferences to prevent a similar reaction with returning World War II veterans. The CIC was transformed into the SRC under the leadership of sociologist Howard Odum. Following the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, the SRC sponsored the formation of state councils on human relations to facilitate desegregation. In 1962, the SRC created the Voter Education Project (VEP) to coordinate the voter registration campaigns of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), and National Urban League (NUL).