Citizens' Councils
The White Citizens' Council was an American group of people who believed that white people were better than black people (white supremacy). It began on July 11, 1954.[1] After 1956, it was called the Citizens' Councils of America. With about 60,000 members,[2] mostly in the South, many people knew the group because it opposed racial integration during the 1950s and 1960s. It responded to integration efforts with economic boycotts and other intimidation against black activists, including depriving them of jobs. The WCC was a part of the "massive resistance" in the South against court decisions that required racial integration.
| White Citizens' Council | |
|---|---|
| Abbreviation | WCC |
| Successor | Council of Conservative Citizens |
| Formation | July 11, 1954 |
| Membership | 60,000 (1955) |
| Founder | Robert Patterson |
Federal civil rights legislation passed in the mid-1960s over the opposition of the WCC. By the 1970s, the federal government was working hard to enforce those laws. So, the influence of the WCC dropped very much. People in the WCC went on to found the Council of Conservative Citizens in the 1985.[2]
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.
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Other websites
- The Citizens' Council Archived 2010-04-25 at the Wayback Machine - 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 from Internet Archive.
- "Civil Rights Documentation Project" Archived 2011-09-11 at the Wayback Machine, University of Southern Mississippi
- Dr. John Dittmer, "'Barbour is an Unreconstructed Southerner': Prof. John Dittmer on Mississippi Governor’s Praise of White Citizens’ Councils", 22 December 2010 video report by Democracy Now!
- "Schwerner, Chaney, and Goodman: The Struggle for Justice" Archived 2009-08-19 at the Wayback Machine, American Bar Association