Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission

The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (also called the Sov-Com) was a state agency which operated from 1956 to 1977. It was directed by the governor of Mississippi. The stated objective of the commission was to "[...] protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi, and her sister states" from "encroachment thereon by the Federal Government". It coordinated activities to portray the state and racial segregation in a more positive light.

During its existence, the commission profiled more than 87,000 names of people associated with the civil rights movement (which it opposed), and was complicit in the murders of three civil rights workers in Neshoba County.

The Commission was created by the Mississippi Legislature in 1956 in reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, in which the United States Supreme Court held unanimously that racially segregated public schools were unconstitutional. The "sovereignty" the state was trying to protect was against federal enforcement of civil rights laws, such as the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and U.S. Supreme Court rulings. The membership consisted of twelve appointed and legislatively elected members, and ex officio members, the governor, lieutenant governor, the Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives, and the state attorney general. The governor sat as the chairman. Its initial budget was $250,000 a year. The Sovereignty Commission's first investigator was Leonard Hicks who began his position in 1956. In 1958 Zack Van Landingham became an investigator, followed by R.C. "Bob" Thomas, State Representative Hugh Boren, Andy Hopkins, and Tom Scarbrough in 1960. Other principal investigators for the Sovereignty Commission were Virgil Downing, Leland Cole, Fulton Tutor, Edgar C. Fortenberry, and James "Mack" Mohead.

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