Robert Boyd "Tut" Patterson (December 13, 1921 – September 21, 2017) was an American plantation manager and former
college football
College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States.
Unlike most ...
star who is known for founding the first
Citizens' Councils
The Citizens' Councils (commonly referred to as the White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash a ...
, a white supremacist organization, established 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 ...
in 1954, in response to the ''
Brown v. Board of Education
''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregat ...
'' decision. In 1966 he helped found
Pillow Academy
Pillow Academy (PA) is an independent, co-educational college preparatory school in unincorporated Leflore County, Mississippi, near Greenwood.Greenwood.
As a boy in Clarksdale, he was close friends—"playing, fishing, hunting, wrestling"—with Aaron Henry, who grew up to become a founder of 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 ...
, the
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
The Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP), also referred to as the Freedom Democratic Party, was an American political party created in 1964 as a branch of the populist Freedom Democratic organization in the state of Mississippi during the ...
, the
Council of Federated Organizations
The Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) was a coalition of the major Civil Rights Movement organizations operating in Mississippi. COFO was formed in 1961 to coordinate and unite voter registration and other civil rights activities in the sta ...
and the Mississippi branch 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 ...
.
Patterson graduated from the
Mississippi State College
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 ...
School of Agriculture in 1943. At 17 he hitchhiked from Clarksdale to Starkville to try out with the
Bulldogs
The Bulldog is a British breed of dog of mastiff type. It may also be known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. It is of medium size, a muscular, hefty dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose.center
Center or centre may refer to:
Mathematics
*Center (geometry), the middle of an object
* Center (algebra), used in various contexts
** Center (group theory)
** Center (ring theory)
* Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentricity ...
, but when placed as an
end
End, END, Ending, or variation, may refer to:
End
*In mathematics:
** End (category theory)
** End (topology)
**End (graph theory)
** End (group theory) (a subcase of the previous)
**End (endomorphism)
*In sports and games
**End (gridiron footbal ...
he succeeded so emphatically that he was awarded a four-year scholarship. He was on the 1940
Orange Bowl
The Orange Bowl is an annual American college football bowl game played in the Miami metropolitan area. It has been played annually since January 1, 1935, making it, along with the Sugar Bowl and the Sun Bowl, the second-oldest bowl game in th ...
championship team, the only undefeated team in the school's history. In 1942 he was made captain. That year he played in the Blue-Gray College All Star game and was selected as an All
Southeastern Conference
The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...
end. He was named to the MSU Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.
At Mississippi State he pledged to
Sigma Alpha Epsilon
Sigma Alpha Epsilon (), commonly known as SAE, is a North American Greek-letter social college fraternity. It was founded at the University of Alabama on March 9, 1856. Of all existing national social fraternities today, Sigma Alpha Epsilon is t ...
. He was a member of Alpha Zeta agricultural fraternity as well as
ROTC
The Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC ( or )) is a group of college- and university-based officer-training programs for training commissioned officers of the United States Armed Forces.
Overview
While ROTC graduate officers serve in all ...
and the honors clubs
Phi Eta Sigma
Phi Eta Sigma () is an American freshman honor society. Founded at the University of Illinois on March 22, 1923, it is the oldest and largest freshman honor society and has chartered three hundred and eighty-six chapters throughout the United Stat ...
,
Blue Key
Blue Key Honor Society is an American national honor society for college upperclassmen. Blue Key has over 50 chartered collegiate chapters within the United States.
History
Blue Key Honor Society was founded as Blue Key National Honor Frater ...
and
Omicron Delta Kappa
Omicron Delta Kappa (), also known as The Circle and ODK, is one of the most prestigious honor societies in the United States with chapters at more than 300 college campuses. It was founded December 3, 1914, at Washington and Lee University in ...
, and was president of the school's athletic society the M-Club in his senior year.
Patterson was a veteran of
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
, at 24 attaining the rank of
major
Major (commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicators ...
. He was a paratrooper with the
82nd Airborne Division
The 82nd Airborne Division is an Airborne forces, airborne infantry division (military), division of the United States Army specializing in Paratrooper, parachute assault operations into denied areasSof, Eric"82nd Airborne Division" ''Spec Ops ...
Battle of the Bulge
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive (military), offensive military campaign, campaign on the Western Front (World War II), Western Front during World War II. The battle lasted fr ...
. The 82nd Airborne was one of the first American occupying troops in Berlin; Patterson was appointed Division
Provost Marshal
Provost marshal is a title given to a person in charge of a group of Military Police (MP). The title originated with an older term for MPs, '' provosts'', from the Old French ''prévost'' (Modern French ''prévôt''). While a provost marshal i ...
for Berlin by General Gavin, who later played an important part in integrating the Army.