The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of the major United States Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi. COFO was formed in 1961 to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the state and oversee the distribution of funds from the Voter Education Project. It was instrumental in forming the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. COFO member organizations included the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The prelude to the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi began after World War II when veterans such as Medgar Evers, his brother Charles Evers, Aaron Henry, and Amzie Moore returned home from fighting Nazi Germany. These veterans led and revitalized defunct chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) throughout the state.

After the war, Evers took a job as an insurance salesman. His travels took him to the poorest areas of rural Mississippi. His guilt over attempting to sell insurance policies to families who could barely afford food led to him joining the NAACP in the early 1950s. He soon became the organization's first field secretary in 1954. Friend, fellow veteran, and pharmacist, Aaron Henry also took up the reins of activism by founding and becoming the first president of the Clarksdale, Mississippi branch of the NAACP. Henry organized the local group to have two white men indicted for the kidnapping and rape of two young black girls. The men were acquitted, but getting an indictment at all was a major victory for the young organization. Evers also found organizing work frustrating throughout the 1950s. This work mainly included traveling throughout the state giving "pep talks" to local chapters and investigating racially motivated murders. Despite limited success, the theme of rivalry would reappear in these early stages. Evers, Henry, and fellow NAACP leader Amzie Moore would join the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) in 1951 despite objections from the national NAACP office. In addition to joining what Henry called the "homegrown" NAACP, Evers and Henry traveled to New Orleans, Louisiana for the organizational meeting of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC). Roy Wilkins, national director of the NAACP, felt threatened by the charismatic leadership of the new organization's leader, Martin Luther King Jr. Evers objected to the national office's concerns on the basis that both organizations' goals were "identical", but respected the national leadership and opposed the SCLC's talk of an office in Jackson, Mississippi. Henry, however remained on the SCLC board and was soon elected state president in 1960. Ironically, this early rivalry would lead to the NAACP devoting more time and attention to its Mississippi chapters.

The reluctance of the NAACP to accept new ideas led Amzie Moore to a student conference in Atlanta in 1960. Moore, president of the Cleveland, Mississippi chapter and state vice-president of the NAACP, had become frustrated with the legalistic and slow moving national office, and respected the idealism and devotion of the new student movement in other parts of the country. In Atlanta, Moore met Bob Moses, a young teacher from Harlem in New York City. Moses, a Harvard graduate, was inspired by the North Carolina student sit-ins in February 1960. That summer he volunteered in the corner of the Atlanta SCLC office with the small staff of the newly formed Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Moses traveled through Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana recruiting young people for SNCC's fall conference. On this tour, Moore shared a vision with Moses that included a statewide, grassroots, voter registration drive spearheaded by students. Concerned about family and career matters at home, Moses agreed to return one year later to embrace Moore's dream. However, it was Moore who was not quite ready for Moses when he returned in the summer of 1961, so Moses found himself farther south in McComb, Mississippi alongside NAACP member C.C. Bryant. The McComb movement consisted of voter registration classes and local student protests. The work in McComb failed to bring any immediate results, but was invaluable training for Moses and the SNCC workers who followed him. They next took their new experiences and reputations with them into the Mississippi Delta.

The SNCC and NAACP McComb project coincided with the early days of the Freedom Rides sponsored by the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The Freedom Riders were an integrated group of students and veteran participants of CORE activities who intended to challenge local segregation laws, and test new federal laws regarding interstate travel by riding together from Washington, D.C., to New Orleans, Louisiana. After the initial thirteen students were stopped by violence in Alabama, SNCC's Diane Nash and other members of the Nashville Student Movement, which had recently finished the Nashville sit-ins, recruited students from Nashville, Tennessee, to finish the Rides. After continued local violence, and protests by the Kennedy administration, these new Riders arrived in Jackson on May 24, 1961. Governor Ross Barnett, promising the Kennedys peace, ordered state and local police to enforce the law. The Freedom Riders were swiftly arrested, tried, and sent to the notorious state prison in Parchman. Replacement riders soon flooded the state and were also sent to Parchman. One of these "replacements" was Dave Dennis of New Orleans. Dennis's future friendship with Moses soon became the vital glue that would maintain the COFO coalition.

Several events set the context of the creation of the statewide COFO group. John Doar of the Justice Department arrived in Mississippi to begin investigating claims of people who were prevented from voting and found local support from Aaron Henry. As Freedom Riders converged upon Jackson, Mississippi, Henry and the Clarksdale NAACP attempted to set up a meeting with the Governor Barnett. On his refusal to meet with the civil rights group, they created the Clarksdale Council of Federated Organizations for the meeting. Under this new name, the active middle-class of Clarksdale would continue their ongoing voter registration drive. King briefly appeared in Jackson to make a speech in support of the Freedom Riders. This again worried the national NAACP office, but Evers reassured them that strong chapters in Mississippi would prevent the student movement from gaining local ground. Contrary to Evers' statement, the student movement soon swept through Jackson. Tougaloo College students joined with SNCC workers to create the Non-Violent Action Group to sponsor workshops on nonviolent philosophy, and hold local sit-ins and demonstrations. Evers and black Jacksonians viewed these "outsiders" with contempt. The conflict between the various groups was "generational, organizational, and ideological".

Evers slowly warmed up to the dedication of the young activists of 1961-1962 and asked the national office for permission to endorse the direct action activities. These activities violated the NAACP's traditional practice of working through court cases and pushing voter registration. The request was quickly rejected. Evers was so frustrated by national leaders that he considered leaving the organization. Despite national objections, Henry sent requests in support of the Clarksdale registration drives and boycotts to King in Atlanta and Tom Gaither of CORE. Gaither and Moses joined forces in a memo to national SNCC and CORE offices about a coordinated voter registration drive throughout Mississippi focusing primarily on areas where blacks made up 45 percent of the population. Evers and Henry became convinced of the need for unity, instead of an overlap in operation, on a trip to Los Angeles. During the trip the Mississippi activists observed local Jewish groups working in harmony towards a common cause. Soon Henry, Evers, Moses, and Dennis met in Jackson to discuss the possibilities of a coordinated effort throughout Mississippi.

Nationally, many members of the Justice Department took a vengeful attitude towards the hostile southern states after the Freedom Rides. The Atlanta-based Southern Regional Council found this new aggression helpful in creating the Voter Education Project (VEP). VEP funded registration activities under the supervision of the Justice Department throughout the south. Soon after the Evers-Henry-Moses-Dennis Jackson meeting, VEP director Wiley A Branton, and James Bevel of the SCLC, traveled to Clarksdale to meet with the Jackson planners and other Mississippi leaders. Branton found the local activists receptive to the coordinated effort and grants that VEP could provide. The main opposition again came from Roy Wilkins of the national NAACP office. He considered Mississippi to be NAACP territory and did not want his organization's funds to be spent through groups like SNCC. Since the heads of each national organization had veto power in decisions regarding VEP funds, Branton proposed a smokescreen organization that would allow local groups to cooperate, but would avoid the interference of detached national groups. This need, and the vision discussed in the Jackson meeting, gave birth to the statewide revamp of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO).