Citizens' Councils: Difference between revisions
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By the 1970s, the influence of the WCC had waned considerably. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Council is the [[Council of Conservative Citizens]],<ref name="adl" /> founded in 1988. |
By the 1970s, the influence of the WCC had waned considerably. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Council is the [[Council of Conservative Citizens]],<ref name="adl" /> founded in 1988. |
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[[File:Citizens.council.june.1961.silver.lining.png|thumb|right|Clipping from ''Citizens' Council'' newspaper, June 1961 |
[[File:Citizens.council.june.1961.silver.lining.png|thumb|right|Clipping from ''Citizens' Council'' newspaper, June 1961]] |
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== Formation and early years of the movement == |
== Formation and early years of the movement == |
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Within a few months, the WCC had attracted members and new chapters developed beyond Mississippi into the rest of the Deep South. It often had the support of the leading citizens of many communities, including business, civic and sometimes religious leaders. Unlike the [[Ku Klux Klan]], the WCC met openly and was seen by many as being "reputable"; in most communities there was little or no [[stigma (sociological theory)|stigma]] associated with being a member of the WCC. Also unlike the Klan, the group eschewed the use of [[violence]],<ref name="usm.edu"/> instead using economic and political tactics.<ref name="orig.jacksonsun.com"/> |
Within a few months, the WCC had attracted members and new chapters developed beyond Mississippi into the rest of the Deep South. It often had the support of the leading citizens of many communities, including business, civic and sometimes religious leaders. Unlike the [[Ku Klux Klan]], the WCC met openly and was seen by many as being "reputable"; in most communities there was little or no [[stigma (sociological theory)|stigma]] associated with being a member of the WCC. Also unlike the Klan, the group eschewed the use of [[violence]],<ref name="usm.edu"/> instead using economic and political tactics.<ref name="orig.jacksonsun.com"/> |
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== Influence of the councils == |
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[[African American]]s who were seen as being too supportive of desegregation, [[voting rights in the United States|voting rights]], or other perceived threats to whites' supremacy found themselves and their family members [[unemployment|unemployed]] in many instances; [[white people|whites]] who supported civil rights for African Americans were not immune from finding this happening to them as well. Members of the Citizens' Council were sometimes Klansmen, and the more influential the Citizens' Council member, the more influence he had with the Klan. In fact, the WCC was even referred to during the civil rights era as "an uptown Klan," "a [[White-collar worker|white collar]] Klan," "a button-down Klan," and "a country club Klan." The rationale for these nicknames was that it appeared that sheets and hoods had been discarded and replaced by suits and ties. Much like the Klan, WCC members held documented white supremacist views and involved themselves in [[racism|racist]] activities. They more often held leadership in civic and political organizations, however, which enabled them to legitimize [[racial discrimination|discriminatory]] practices aimed at non-whites. |
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== Resistance to desegregation == |
== Resistance to desegregation == |
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Revision as of 10:28, 7 September 2011
The White Citizens' Council (WCC)—subsequently known as the Citizens' Councils of America after 1956,[1][2] which is how the group referred to itself,[3]—was an American white supremacist organization formed on July 11, 1954.[4] With about 60,000 members,[2] mostly in the South, the group was well known for its opposition to racial integration. Its issues involved the protection of "European-American heritage" from those of other ethnicities.[5]
By the 1970s, the influence of the WCC had waned considerably. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Council is the Council of Conservative Citizens,[2] founded in 1988.
Formation and early years of the movement
Some sources claim that the White Citizens' Council originated in Greenwood, Mississippi following the 1954-1955 Brown vs. Board of Education decisions,[6] while others claim that it originated in Indianola, Mississippi.[7] The leader was Robert B. Patterson [8] of Indianola.[4] Patterson was a plantation manager and the former captain of the Mississippi State University football team. Additional chapters soon appeared in other communities.
In Louisiana, leaders of the original Citizen's Council included State Senator and gubernatorial candidate William Rainach, future U.S. Representative Joe D. Waggonner, Jr., publisher Ned Touchstone, and Judge Leander Perez, considered the political boss of Plaquemines and St. Bernard parishes south of New Orleans.
The formation of the WCC was partly a response to the assertive activities of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a grassroots civil organization organized by T. R. M. Howard of the all-black town Mound Bayou, Mississippi in 1951. Mound Bayou was only forty miles from Indianola, Mississippi. Although as an adult Patterson was opposed to such groups, in boyhood in Clarksdale, Mississippi, Patterson was a friend of Aaron Henry, an official in the RCNL and the future head of the Mississippi NAACP.[9]
Within a few months, the WCC had attracted members and new chapters developed beyond Mississippi into the rest of the Deep South. It often had the support of the leading citizens of many communities, including business, civic and sometimes religious leaders. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, the WCC met openly and was seen by many as being "reputable"; in most communities there was little or no stigma associated with being a member of the WCC. Also unlike the Klan, the group eschewed the use of violence,[4] instead using economic and political tactics.[6]
Resistance to desegregation
The movement grew as activism and Federal enforcement of racial desegregation became more intense, probably peaking in the early 1960s. In Tuscaloosa, Alabama, the Council, unlike the Ku Klux Klan, did not put up welcome signs, but instead exerted financial pressures on those who did not support segregation.[10] As school desegregation increased, in some communities "council schools," sponsored by the WCC, were set up for white children. These "segregation academies" or "seg academies" [11] exist even today,[11] although they have generally assumed other sponsorship and most have been forced to integrate, at least in theory, in order to maintain the tax-exempt status afforded to non-profit private schools, which is granted only to those that maintain racial and ethnic nondiscrimination.
Decline of the movement
By the 1970s, as white Southerners' attitudes toward desegregation began to change,[12] the influence of the WCCs began to wane. Also, the growing economic and political power of African Americans left few white business owners willing to be openly associated with a racist organization. A few such groups still exist, including the Conservative Citizens' Council [13] and the Council of Conservative Citizens, founded by former White Citizens' Council members.[14] In recent years, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, among other conservative leaders, received some negative publicity for addressing one such group. Governor Barbour recently recalled the civil rights struggle in his hometown, Yazoo City, Mississippi, saying, "I just don't remember it as being that bad." [15] He stated that the local WCC rejected the Ku Klux Klan implying that the local chapter of the WCC was not an impediment to peaceful integration although individuals who petitioned for educational integration were singled out and publicly blacklisted by the WCC.[16]
See also
- American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954)
- American Civil Rights Movement (1955–1968)
- Timeline of the American Civil Rights Movement
References
- ^ White Citizens' Council". Thomas Jessen Adams. January 1, 2008.
- ^ a b c Council of Conservative Citizens – Extremism in America. Anti-Defamation League. Retrieved 2010-04-21.
- ^ The Citizens' Council, the group's official newspaper from October 1956 onward, referred to itself as the "official paper of The Citizens' Councils of America". See masthead.
- ^ a b c http://www.usm.edu/crdp/html/cd/citizens.htm
- ^ The Council of Conservative Citizens: Chronology of a Scandal
- ^ a b http://orig.jacksonsun.com/civilrights/sec2_citizencouncil.shtml
- ^ Roberts, Gene and Hank Klibanoff (2006). The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. p. 66. ISBN 0679403817.
- ^ http://hnn.us/articles/134814.html
- ^ David T. Beito and Linda Royster Beito, Black Maverick: T.R.M. Howard's Fight for Civil Rights and Economic Power (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 95-97.
- ^ http://www.trinitypresbyterianchurch.org/gee/doc/Al_Winn_Statement_of_Faith.pdf
- ^ a b http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segregation_academies
- ^ http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=10033
- ^ www.cofcc.org/
- ^ http://www.adl.org/learn/ext_us/CCCitizens.asp
- ^ http://nymag.com/daily/intel/2010/12/potential_presidential_candida.html
- ^ http://www.democracynow.org/2010/12/22/barbour_is_an_unreconstructed_southerner_prof
Further reading
- Dittmer, John (1 May 1995). Local people: the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06507-1. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
- McMillen, Neil R. (1 October 1994). The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64. University of Illinois Press. ISBN 978-0-252-06441-8. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
- Payne, Charles M. (16 March 2007). I've got the light of freedom: the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-25176-2. Retrieved 6 September 2011.
Video and audio material
- Interview of T.R.M. Howard in Los Angeles on fighting the economic pressure campaign of the White Citizens' Councils in Mississippi - Video from December 1955
External links
- The Citizens' Council; digitized copies of the Citizen Council's newspaper, 1955–1961. Originally a publication of the Mississippi Citizens' Council, it became the official paper of the Citizens' Councils of America in October 1956.
- Available in PDF from Internet Archive.
- Civil Rights Documentation Project page
- Dr. John Dittmer on Governor Haley Barbour's Praise of White Citizens’ Councils - video report by Democracy Now!
- Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman: The Struggle for Justice