The Citizens' Councils (commonly referred to as the White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of
white supremacist
White supremacy or white supremacism is the belief that white people are superior to those of other Race (human classification), races and thus should dominate them. The belief favors the maintenance and defense of any Power (social and polit ...
,
segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the
South
South is one of the cardinal directions or Points of the compass, compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both east and west.
Etymology
The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Pro ...
and created as part of a
white backlash against the
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
's
landmark
A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances.
In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...
''
Brown v. Board of Education'' ruling. The first was formed on July 11, 1954.
The name was changed to the Citizens' Councils of America in 1956. With about 60,000 members across the
Southern United States
The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...
,
the groups were founded primarily to oppose
racial integration
Racial integration, or simply integration, includes desegregation (the process of ending systematic racial segregation). In addition to desegregation, integration includes goals such as leveling barriers to association, creating equal opportunity ...
of public schools: the logical conclusion of the ''Brown v. Board of Education'' ruling.
The Councils also worked to oppose voter registration efforts in the South (where most African Americans had been
disenfranchised
Disfranchisement, also called disenfranchisement, or voter disqualification is the restriction of suffrage (the right to vote) of a person or group of people, or a practice that has the effect of preventing a person exercising the right to vote. D ...
since the late 19th century) and integration of public facilities in general during the 1950s and 1960s. Members employed tactics such as economic boycotts, unjustified termination of employment, propaganda, and outright violence. By the 1970s the influence of the Councils had waned considerably due to the passage of federal civil rights legislation.
The councils' mailing lists and some of their board members found their way to the
St. Louis-based
Council of Conservative Citizens
The Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC or CCC) is an American white supremacist organization. Founded in 1985, it advocates white nationalism, and supports some paleoconservative causes. In the organization's statement of principles, it st ...
, founded in 1985.
History
Founding and activities
In May 1954, the
US Supreme Court
The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) is the highest court in the federal judiciary of the United States. It has ultimate appellate jurisdiction over all U.S. federal court cases, and over state court cases that involve a point of ...
ruled in ''
Brown v. Board of Education'' that the segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. At the time, schools and other public facilities were segregated by state laws in Southern states. The Citizens' Councils were founded in
Indianola, Mississippi
Indianola is a U.S. city in Sunflower County, Mississippi, in the Mississippi Delta. The population was 10,683 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Sunflower County.
History
In 1891, Minnie M. Cox was appointed postmaster of Indianola, b ...
two months after the ''Brown v. Board'' ruling.
The recognized leader was
Robert B. Patterson
Robert Boyd "Tut" Patterson (December 13, 1921 – September 21, 2017) was an American plantation manager and former college football star who is known for founding the first Citizens' Councils, a white supremacist organization, established in ...
,
a
plantation
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...
manager and a former captain of the
Mississippi State University
Mississippi State University for Agriculture and Applied Science, commonly known as Mississippi State University (MSU), is a public land-grant research university adjacent to Starkville, Mississippi. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Unive ...
football team. Additional chapters were established in many other southern towns in following years.
At this time, most Southern states enforced the racial segregation of all public facilities; in places where local laws did not require segregation,
Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
harassment enforced it. From 1890 to 1908, most Southern states passed new constitutions or laws which
disfranchised most blacks by imposing barriers to voter registration and voting. Despite the fact that civil rights organizations won some legal challenges, such as the prohibition on
white primaries
White primaries were primary elections held in the Southern United States in which only white voters were permitted to participate. Statewide white primaries were established by the state Democratic Party units or by state legislatures in South Ca ...
, most blacks were still disfranchised in the South in the 1950s. They risked retaliation by challenging the segregation of seating on buses as well as the segregation of seating at lunch counters, including segregation in department stores. The risks did not end immediately after the passage of the
Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 is a landmark piece of federal legislation in the United States that prohibits racial discrimination in voting. It was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson during the height of the civil rights movement ...
.
Patterson and his followers formed the White Citizens Council in response to increased civil rights activism, activism which it responded to with economic retaliation and violence. The
Regional Council of Negro Leadership
The Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL) was a society in Mississippi founded by T. R. M. Howard in 1951 to promote a program of civil rights, self-help, and business ownership. It pledged "to guide our people in their civic responsibilit ...
(RCNL), a
grassroots
A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...
civil rights organization founded in 1951 by
T. R. M. Howard
Theodore Roosevelt Mason Howard (March 4, 1908 – May 1, 1976) was an American civil rights leader, fraternal organization leader, entrepreneur and surgeon. He was a mentor to activists such as Medgar Evers, Charles Evers, Fannie Lou Hamer, ...
of the all-black town
Mound Bayou, Mississippi, was based 40 miles from Indianola.
Aaron Henry, a later official in the RCNL and the future head of the Mississippi
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
had met Patterson during their childhood.
Within a few months, the White Citizens Council had attracted members whose
racist
Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to inherited attributes and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism ...
views were similar to the views of its leaders; 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.
Racist ideology
Council members published a book which was titled ''Black Monday''. The book detailed their belief that
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
were inferior to
white people
White is a racialized classification of people and a skin color specifier, generally used for people of European origin, although the definition can vary depending on context, nationality, and point of view.
Description of populations as ...
which served as the basis for their belief that the
races must remain separate. "If in one mighty voice we do not protest this travesty on justice, we might as well surrender," one of the authors, Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Tom P. Brady, wrote.
Demise and reconstitution
By the 1970s, as white Southerners' attitudes towards desegregation began to change following the passage of federal civil rights legislation and the enforcement of integration and voting rights in the 1960s, the activities of the White Citizens' Councils began to wane. The
Council of Conservative Citizens
The Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC or CCC) is an American white supremacist organization. Founded in 1985, it advocates white nationalism, and supports some paleoconservative causes. In the organization's statement of principles, it st ...
, founded in 1985 by former White Citizens' Council members,
continued the agendas of the earlier Councils.
Activities
Publishing
Unlike the secretive
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
but working in unison, the White Citizens Council met openly. It was seen superficially as "pursuing the agenda of the Klan with the demeanor of the
Rotary Club
Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, profe ...
".
From October 1954, the council published a newsletter, ''The Citizens' Council'', which evolved into a magazine in October 1961 and continued to be published until 1989 as ''The Citizen''.
Among its other activities, throughout the last half of the 1950s, the White Citizens' Councils produced racist children's books, for instance, teaching that
heaven
Heaven or the heavens, is a common religious cosmological or transcendent supernatural place where beings such as deities, angels, souls, saints, or venerated ancestors are said to originate, be enthroned, or reside. According to the belie ...
(in the Christian conception) is segregated.
Council Schools
The White Citizens' Council in Mississippi prevented school integration until 1964.
[Dr. John Dittmer, "'Barbour is an Unreconstructed Southerner': Prof. John Dittmer on Mississippi Governor's Praise of White Citizens' Councils"](_blank)
December 22, 2010 video report by '' Democracy Now!'', accessed November 21, 2011 As
school desegregation
School integration in the United States is the process (also known as desegregation) of ending race-based segregation within American public and private schools. Racial segregation in schools existed throughout most of American history and rema ...
increased in some parts of the South, in some communities the White Citizens' Council sponsored "council schools," private institutions set up for white children. Such private schools, also called segregation academies, were beyond the reach of the ruling on public schools. Many of these private "
segregation academies
Segregation academies are private schools in the Southern United States that were founded in the mid-20th century by white parents to avoid having their children attend desegregated public schools. They were founded between 1954, when the U.S. ...
" continue to operate today.
The Council sponsored a
system of twelve segregated schools in Jackson, Mississippi.
Voter suppression
Citizens' Councils conducted voter purges to remove Black voters from election rolls.
Before the practice was found illegal in a federal court case of 1963, the Council pushed a public challenge law allowing two voters to challenge another voter to see if he was lawfully registered, a provision they used to purge the rolls of Black voters. In one parish,
Bienville Parish, 95% of Black voters were purged.
Similarly, the Council distributed such pamphlets as "Voter Qualification Laws in Louisiana: The Key to Victory in the Segregation Struggle" to white registrars and required them to participate in mandatory seminars about preventing Black registration and purging Black voters.
Violence and economic harassment
Although the White Citizens Councils publicly eschewed the use of
violence
Violence is the use of physical force so as to injure, abuse, damage, or destroy. Other definitions are also used, such as the World Health Organization's definition of violence as "the intentional use of physical force or Power (social and p ...
,
they condoned the harsh economic and political tactics which were used against registered voters and activists. The members of the White Citizens Councils collaborated in order to threaten jobs, causing people to be fired or evicted from rental homes; they boycotted businesses, ensured that activists could not get loans, among other tactics.
As historian
Charles Payne Charles Payne may refer to:
* Charles Payne (clergyman) (1830–1899), Methodist clergyman and president of Ohio Wesleyan University
* Charles Payne (television personality) (born 1960), American Fox Business Network contributor and co-host of '' ...
notes, "Despite the official disclaimers, violence often followed in the wake of Council intimidation campaigns."
Occasionally some Councils directly incited violence, such as
lynchings
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
,
shooting
Shooting is the act or process of discharging a projectile from a ranged weapon (such as a gun, bow, crossbow, slingshot, or blowpipe). Even the acts of launching flame, artillery, darts, harpoons, grenades, rockets, and guided missiles can ...
s,
rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse or other forms of sexual penetration carried out against a person without their consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority, or ag ...
s and
arson
Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...
, as did
Leander Perez
Leander Henry Perez Sr. (July 16, 1891 – March 19, 1969) was the Democratic political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes in southeastern Louisiana during the middle third of the 20th century. Officially, he served as a district ...
during the
New Orleans school desegregation crisis
The New Orleans school desegregation crisis was a period of intense public resistance in New Orleans following the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in ''Brown v. Board of Education'' that racial segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. ...
. In some cases, Council members were directly involved in acts of violence. Entertainer
Nat King Cole was assaulted in
Birmingham, Alabama
Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% fr ...
while he was on tour.
Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith Jr. (November 9, 1920 – January 21, 2001) was an American murderer, white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan from Greenwood, Mississippi. He murdered the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Two trial ...
, a KKK and Council member, murdered
Medgar Evers, the head of the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
in Mississippi.
For instance, in
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital city of the U.S. state of Alabama and the county seat of Montgomery County. Named for the Irish soldier Richard Montgomery, it stands beside the Alabama River, on the coastal Plain of the Gulf of Mexico. In the 202 ...
, during the
Montgomery bus boycott, at which Senator
James Eastland
James Oliver Eastland (November 28, 1904 February 19, 1986) was an American attorney, plantation owner, and politician from Mississippi. A Democrat, he served in the United States Senate in 1941 and again from 1943 until his resignation on Decem ...
"ranted against the NAACP"
at a large openly held Council meeting in the
Garrett Coliseum
The Garrett Coliseum is a 12,500-seat multi-purpose arena in Montgomery, Alabama, United States. The arena is the centerpiece of the Alabama Agricultural Center, home to the Alabama National Fair. It was built in 1951 and named after W. W. Gar ...
, a mimeographed flyer publicly espousing extreme racial White Citizens Council and
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
views was distributed, its rhetoric was a parody of the
Declaration of Independence and it also said:
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are gun
A gun is a ranged weapon designed to use a shooting tube (gun barrel) to launch projectiles. The projectiles are typically solid, but can also be pressurized liquid (e.g. in water guns/cannons, spray guns for painting or pressure washing, pr ...
s, bows and arrow
An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like stabilizers c ...
s, sling shots and knives.
We hold these truths to be self-evident that all whites are created equal with certain rights; among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead niggers.
The Citizens' Councils used economic tactics against
African Americans
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...
who they believed were supportive of desegregation and
voting rights, as well as African Americans who were members of the
NAACP
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E.&nb ...
, and African Americans who they suspected of being activists. The tactics included "calling in" the
mortgages
A mortgage loan or simply mortgage (), in civil law jurisdicions known also as a hypothec loan, is a loan used either by purchasers of real property to raise funds to buy real estate, or by existing property owners to raise funds for any pu ...
of black citizens, denying loans and business credit, pressing employers to fire certain people, and boycotting black-owned businesses.
In some cities, the Councils published lists of names of NAACP supporters and signers of anti-segregation petitions in local newspapers in order to encourage economic retaliation. For instance, in
Yazoo City, Mississippi
Yazoo City is a U.S. city in Yazoo County, Mississippi. It was named after the Yazoo River, which, in turn was named by the French explorer Robert La Salle in 1682 as "Rivière des Yazous" in reference to the Yazoo tribe living near the river's m ...
in 1955, the Citizens' Council published in the local paper the names of 53 signers of a petition for school integration. Soon afterward, the petitioners lost their jobs and had their credit cut off. As Charles Payne puts it, the Councils operated by "unleashing a wave of economic reprisals against anyone, Black or white, seen as a threat to the status quo".
Their targets included black professionals such as teachers, as well as farmers, high school and college students, shop owners, and housewives.
Medgar Evers' first work for the NAACP on a national level involved interviewing Mississippians who had been intimidated by the White Citizens' Councils and preparing
affidavit
An ( ; Medieval Latin for "he has declared under oath") is a written statement voluntarily made by an ''affiant'' or '' deponent'' under an oath or affirmation which is administered by a person who is authorized to do so by law. Such a statemen ...
s for use as evidence against the Councils if necessary.
Evers was assassinated in 1963 by
Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith Jr. (November 9, 1920 – January 21, 2001) was an American murderer, white supremacist and member of the Ku Klux Klan from Greenwood, Mississippi. He murdered the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963. Two trial ...
, a member of the White Citizens' Council and the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
. The Citizens' Council paid Beckwith's legal expenses in his two trials in 1964, which both resulted in hung juries. In 1994, Beckwith was tried by the state of Mississippi based on new evidence, in part revealed by a lengthy investigation by the ''Jackson Clarion Ledger;'' he was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison.
Political influence
![Joe d waggonner jr](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7b/Joe_d_waggonner_jr.jpg)
Many leading state and local politicians were members of the Councils; in some states, this gave the organization immense influence over state legislatures. In Mississippi, the
State Sovereignty Commission was established, ostensibly to encourage investment in the state and promote its public image. Although funded by taxes paid by all state residents, it made grants to the segregationist Citizens' Councils, in some years providing as much as $50,000. This state agency also shared information with the Councils that it had collected through its secret police-type investigations and surveillance of integration activists.
For example, Dr. M. Ney Williams was both a director of the Citizens' Council and an adviser to governor
Ross Barnett of Mississippi.
Barnett was a member of the council, as was Jackson mayor
Allen C. Thompson
Allen Cavett Thompson (November 6, 1906 – October 18, 1980) was an American politician in the state of Mississippi. Affiliated with the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served in the Mississippi House of Representativ ...
. In 1955, in the midst of the bus boycott seeking integration of seating on city buses, all three members of the
Montgomery city commission in Alabama announced on television that they had joined the Citizens' Council.
Numan Bartley wrote, "In
Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is borde ...
the Citizens' Council organization began as (and to a large extent remained) a projection of the Joint Legislative Committee to Maintain Segregation."
In Louisiana, leaders of the original Citizens' Council included
State Senator
A state senator is a member of a state's senate in the bicameral legislature of 49 U.S. states, or a member of the unicameral Nebraska Legislature.
Description
A state senator is a member of an upper house in the bicameral legislatures of 49 U ...
and
gubernatorial
A governor is an politician, administrative leader and head of a polity or Region#Political_regions, political region, ranking under the Head of State, head of state and in some cases, such as governor-general, governors-general, as the head of ...
candidate
William M. Rainach
William Monroe Rainach Sr. (July 31, 1913 – January 26, 1978) was an American segregationist politician and businessman. A Democrat, he was a member of the Louisiana House of Representatives and the State Senate.
Early life
William Odom was bo ...
,
U.S. Representative
The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they c ...
Joe D. Waggonner Jr., the
publisher
Publishing is the activity of making information, literature, music, software and other content available to the public for sale or for free. Traditionally, the term refers to the creation and distribution of printed works, such as books, newsp ...
Ned Touchstone, and
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a panel of judges. A judge hears all the witnesses and any other evidence presented by the barristers or solicitors of the case, assesses the credibility an ...
Leander Perez
Leander Henry Perez Sr. (July 16, 1891 – March 19, 1969) was the Democratic political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes in southeastern Louisiana during the middle third of the 20th century. Officially, he served as a district ...
, considered the
political boss of
Plaquemines
Plaquemines Parish (; French: ''Paroisse de Plaquemine'', Louisiana French: ''Paroisse des Plaquemines'', es, Parroquia de Caquis) is a parish located in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 23,515 at the 2020 census, the parish ...
and
St. Bernard parishes near
.
On July 16, 1956, "under pressure from the White Citizens Councils,"
[ reprinted in ] the
Louisiana State Legislature
The Louisiana State Legislature (french: Législature d'État de Louisiane) is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is a bicameral body, comprising the lower house, the Louisiana House of Representatives with 105 represen ...
passed a law mandating racial segregation in nearly every aspect of public life; much of the segregation already existed under
Jim Crow
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the Southern United States. Other areas of the United States were affected by formal and informal policies of segregation as well, but many states outside the Sout ...
custom. The bill was signed into law by governor
Earl Long on July 16, 1956, and went into effect on October 15, 1956.
The act read, in part:
An Act to prohibit all interracial dancing
Dance is a performing art form consisting of sequences of movement, either improvised or purposefully selected. This movement has aesthetic and often symbolic value. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire ...
, social functions, entertainment
Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have developed over thousa ...
s, athletic training
Athletic training is an allied health care profession recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA)"What is an Athletic Trainer?". The Board of Certification Website. 2003.
Athletic training is also recognized by the Health Resources Serv ...
, game
A game is a structured form of play (activity), play, usually undertaken for enjoyment, entertainment or fun, and sometimes used as an educational tool. Many games are also considered to be work (such as professional players of spectator s ...
s, sport
Sport pertains to any form of Competition, competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and Skill, skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to specta ...
s, or contests and other such activities; to provide for separate seating and other facilities for white and negroes ower case in originalnbsp;... That all persons, firms, and corporations are prohibited from sponsoring, arranging, participating in or permitting on premises under their control ... such activities involving personal and social contact in which the participants are members of the white and negro races ... That white persons are prohibited from sitting in or using any part of seating arrangements and sanitary or other facilities set apart for members of the negro race. That negro persons are prohibited from sitting in or using any part of seating arrangements and sanitary or other facilities set apart for white persons.
Major
media outlets observed the support
George Wallace
George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician who served as the 45th governor of Alabama for four terms. A member of the Democratic Party, he is best remembered for his staunch segregationist and ...
received from groups such as White Citizens' Councils. It has been noted that members of such groups had permeated the
Wallace campaign by 1968 and, while Wallace did not openly seek their support, he did not refuse it.
See also
*
Racism in the United States
**
Racism against Black Americans
In the context of racism in the United States, racism against African Americans dates back to the Colonial history of the United States, colonial era, and it continues to be a persistent issue in Society of the United States, American society i ...
*
Civil Rights Movement
The civil rights movement was a nonviolent social and political movement and campaign from 1954 to 1968 in the United States to abolish legalized institutional Racial segregation in the United States, racial segregation, Racial discrimination ...
**
Timeline of the civil rights movement
This is a timeline of the civil rights movement in the United States, a nonviolent mid-20th century freedom movement to gain legal equality and the enforcement of constitutional rights for people of color. The goals of the movement included secu ...
*
States' rights
**
Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties
The Defenders of State Sovereignty and Individual Liberties was a political group dedicated to strict segregation in Virginia schools. In June 1955 it published its ''Plan for Virginia''. The words of Richard Crawford, president of the Defenders ...
References
Further reading
*Geary, Daniel and Sutton, Jennifer. "Resisting the Wind of Change: The Citizens' Councils and European Decolonization," in Cornelius A. van Minnen and Manfred Berg, eds., ''The U.S. South and Europe,'' University of Kentucky Press, 2013.
*
* McMillen, Neil R. "White Citizens' Council and Resistance to School Desegregation in Arkansas." ''
Arkansas Historical Quarterly'' 30.2 (1971): 95-122
online
* Rolph, Stephanie R. ''Resisting Equality: The Citizens' Council, 1954–1989'' (2018), focus on Mississippi.
* Rolph, Stephanie R. “The Citizens' Council and Africa: White Supremacy in Global Perspective,” ''
Journal of Southern History'', 82#3 (Aug. 2016), 617–50.
* Walton, Laura Richardson. "Organizing resistance: The use of public relations by the citizens’ council in Mississippi, 1954–64." ''
Journalism History
Journalism is the production and distribution of reports on the interaction of events, facts, ideas, and people that are the "news of the day" and that informs society to at least some degree. The word, a noun, applies to the occupation (profes ...
'' 35.1 (2009): 23–33.
External links
''The Citizens' Council''- Historical resource website by Edward Sebesta, with digitized copies of the full run of ''The Citizens Council'' newspaper, 1955–1961. Originally a publication of the Mississippi Citizens' Council, the monthly publication became the official paper of the Citizens' Councils of America in October 1956.
**Available in PDF fro
Internet Archive
**A complete set of ''The Citizens' Council'' (1961-1973) is available at the University of North Carolina Libraries.
**
University of Southern Mississippi
Dr. John Dittmer, "'Barbour is an Unreconstructed Southerner': Prof. John Dittmer on Mississippi Governor's Praise of White Citizens' Councils" December 22, 2010 video report by ''
Democracy Now!''
"Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman: The Struggle for Justice" American Bar Association
FBI files on the Citizens' Council Movement
{{Authority control
Organizations established in 1954">Citizens' Councils">
Organizations established in 1954
Neo-Confederate organizations
Council of Conservative Citizens
1954 establishments in Mississippi
Education segregation in Mississippi
History of racism in Mississippi