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On July 11, 1954, the 1st White Citizens Council organizes in Indianola, Mississippi.
"The Citizens' Councils (also referred to as White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, extreme right,[1] organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South. The first was formed on July 11, 1954.[2] After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America. With about 60,000 members across the United States,[3] mostly in the South, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of schools, but they also opposed voter registration efforts and integration of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. Members used severe intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and violence against citizens and civil-rights activists.
By the 1970s, following passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s and enforcement of constitutional rights by the federal government, the influence of the Councils had waned considerably yet remained an institutional basis for the majority of white residents in Mississippi. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Councils is the St. Louis-based Council of Conservative Citizens, founded in 1985[3] to continue collaborations between Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist political agendas in the United States. Republican politician and past Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi was a member[4] while North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and Georgia Congressman Bob Barr were both strong supporters of the Council of Conservative Citizens; David Duke also spoke at a fund raising event, while Patrick Buchanan's campaign manager was linked to both Duke and the Council.[5]
In 1996, a Charleston, SC, drive-by shooting by Klan members of three African American males occurred after a Council rally; Dylann Roof, the perpetrator responsible for the murder of nine Emanuel AME church members in Charleston in 2015, espoused Council of Conservative Citizens rhetoric in a manifesto.[6]
In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Some sources claim that the White Citizens' Council first started after this in Greenwood, Mississippi.[7] Others say that it originated in Indianola, Mississippi.[8] The recognized leader was Robert B. Patterson of Indianola,[2][9] a plantation manager and a former captain of the Mississippi State University football team. Additional chapters spread to other southern towns. At this time, most southern states enforced racial segregation of all public facilities; in places where local laws did not require segregation, Jim Crow harassment enforced it. After preliminary post-Civil War Reconstruction efforts led by blacks and poorer whites, the subsequent period from 1890 to 1908 led to disfranchisement of most blacks through the passing of new constitutions and other laws making voter registration and elections more difficult, and led to the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Despite civil rights organizations winning some legal challenges, most blacks in the 1950s were still retaliated against for registering to vote, as well as for riding buses and sitting at lunch counters,[10] in the South and remained so even after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Patterson and his followers formed the White Citizens Council in part to respond with economic retaliation and violence to increased civil rights activism. The Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a grassroots civil rights organization founded in 1951 by T. R. M. Howard of the all-black town Mound Bayou, Mississippi was also 40 miles from Indianola. Aaron Henry, a later official in the RCNL and the future head of the Mississippi NAACP[11] had met Patterson during their childhood.
Within a few months, the White Citizens Council had attracted similar racist members; new chapters developed beyond Mississippi in the rest of the Deep South. The Council often had the support of the leading white citizens of many communities, including business, law enforcement, civic and sometimes religious leaders, many of whom were members. Member businesses, such as newspaper publishing, legal representation, medical service, were known for collectively acting against registered voters whose names were first published in local papers before additional retaliatory actions were taken against them.[12]
Sometimes they were directly involved in voter purges to remove Black voters.[13] "
"The Citizens' Councils (also referred to as White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, extreme right,[1] organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South. The first was formed on July 11, 1954.[2] After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America. With about 60,000 members across the United States,[3] mostly in the South, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of schools, but they also opposed voter registration efforts and integration of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. Members used severe intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and violence against citizens and civil-rights activists.
By the 1970s, following passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s and enforcement of constitutional rights by the federal government, the influence of the Councils had waned considerably yet remained an institutional basis for the majority of white residents in Mississippi. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Councils is the St. Louis-based Council of Conservative Citizens, founded in 1985[3] to continue collaborations between Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist political agendas in the United States. Republican politician and past Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi was a member[4] while North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms and Georgia Congressman Bob Barr were both strong supporters of the Council of Conservative Citizens; David Duke also spoke at a fund raising event, while Patrick Buchanan's campaign manager was linked to both Duke and the Council.[5]
In 1996, a Charleston, SC, drive-by shooting by Klan members of three African American males occurred after a Council rally; Dylann Roof, the perpetrator responsible for the murder of nine Emanuel AME church members in Charleston in 2015, espoused Council of Conservative Citizens rhetoric in a manifesto.[6]
In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Some sources claim that the White Citizens' Council first started after this in Greenwood, Mississippi.[7] Others say that it originated in Indianola, Mississippi.[8] The recognized leader was Robert B. Patterson of Indianola,[2][9] a plantation manager and a former captain of the Mississippi State University football team. Additional chapters spread to other southern towns. At this time, most southern states enforced racial segregation of all public facilities; in places where local laws did not require segregation, Jim Crow harassment enforced it. After preliminary post-Civil War Reconstruction efforts led by blacks and poorer whites, the subsequent period from 1890 to 1908 led to disfranchisement of most blacks through the passing of new constitutions and other laws making voter registration and elections more difficult, and led to the founding of the Ku Klux Klan. Despite civil rights organizations winning some legal challenges, most blacks in the 1950s were still retaliated against for registering to vote, as well as for riding buses and sitting at lunch counters,[10] in the South and remained so even after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
Patterson and his followers formed the White Citizens Council in part to respond with economic retaliation and violence to increased civil rights activism. The Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a grassroots civil rights organization founded in 1951 by T. R. M. Howard of the all-black town Mound Bayou, Mississippi was also 40 miles from Indianola. Aaron Henry, a later official in the RCNL and the future head of the Mississippi NAACP[11] had met Patterson during their childhood.
Within a few months, the White Citizens Council had attracted similar racist members; new chapters developed beyond Mississippi in the rest of the Deep South. The Council often had the support of the leading white citizens of many communities, including business, law enforcement, civic and sometimes religious leaders, many of whom were members. Member businesses, such as newspaper publishing, legal representation, medical service, were known for collectively acting against registered voters whose names were first published in local papers before additional retaliatory actions were taken against them.[12]
Sometimes they were directly involved in voter purges to remove Black voters.[13] "
Citizens' Councils - Wikipedia
Posted from en.m.wikipedia.org
American History
Supreme Court
Equality
Racism
Discrimination
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 4
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Lt Col John (Jack) Christensen
Craziness is a good description. Thoughtful and caring response isn't it seems.
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I worry that the current political environment is eemboldening people with views like this. Laws may have changed but lots of people have retained the views that gave rise to these councils.
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