From 1977 to 1995, Suitts was executive director of the Atlanta-based Southern Regional Council (SRC), the region's oldest interracial organization. At the Council, Suitts started its Voting Rights Project which helped to renew the federal Voting Rights Act in 1982 and to fairly redistrict over two thousand Southern jurisdictions involving elected positions on city councils, county commissions, school boards, state legislatures, judgeships, and the Congress. He began several programs that promoted academic achievement in the South's poorest schools and supported leadership development among democratic activists across the region and nation. Suitts also wrote several special reports, including two that helped to prompt the U.S. federal courts to adopt its first affirmative action plan and to establish ethical cannons barring federal judges' membership in segregated clubs.