recast his proposed committee, successfully, as a tool to investigate the NAACP's activities in Florida. The committee's broadly-worded mandate from the Legislature was to "investigate all organizations whose principles or activities include a course of conduct on the part of any person or group which could constitute violence, or a violation of the laws of the state, or would be inimical to the well being and orderly pursuit of their personal and business activities by the majority of the citizens of this state." However, "Johns claimed that he believed the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) to be the only group that the Committee would investigate." One of the Johns Committee's first tasks was to investigate and punish faculty and staff at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, a historically black college, for supporting the Tallahassee bus boycott of 1956–1957. The committee sought to find communist links to the NAACP and subpoenaed Ruth Perry three times in an effort gain access to the membership records. The committee was further rebuffed when the NAACP got a ruling from the United States Supreme Court denying the Johns Committee access to their membership lists (which they had mailed out of state, for safekeeping). The committee also investigated the activities of other politically active organizations, such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Ku Klux Klan, as well as both pro-Castro and anti-Castro groups." Assault on homosexuals Stymied in their investigation of the NAACP, the committee turned to the issue of homosexuals, specifically at the University at Florida. John d'Emilio has suggested that this may have been provoked by support for desegregation at the University of Florida, but Stacy Braukman sees it simply as a popular issue (cleaning out homosexuals, thought to prey on children) the committee seized hold of. As Johns said in a 1972 interview, "If we saved one boy from being made homosexual, it was justified." In 1961, the Legislature directed the Johns Committee to broaden its investigations to include homosexuals and the "extent of [their] infiltration into agencies supported by state funds," particularly at the University of Florida, Florida State University, and the University of South Florida. Having the power to subpoena witnesses, take sworn testimony, and employ secret informants, the committee spread terror among the closeted lesbian and gay population in state colleges, often using uniformed policemen to pull students and professors out of classes for