White Citizens Council

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The White Citizens Council ( WCC ) was an American organization that promoted the ideas of white supremacy . It was founded on July 11, 1954 and from 1956 on as Citizens Councils of America . With over 60,000 members, most of them in the southern states , it was a major opponent of racial integration or the civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. The WCC relied on economic boycotts and other forms of intimidation against black civil rights activists, including, if possible, preventing them from finding a job.

In the 1970s, the influence of the WCC steadily waned after various civil rights laws were passed in the mid-1960s and the federal government increasingly enforced civil rights. In 1985 the Council of Conservative Citizens was founded as the successor organization.

history

The origin of the White Citizens Council is in Mississippi . Some sources report that the founding took place in Greenwood after the Brown vs. Board of Education of the Supreme Court 1954/55. In this it was declared that racial segregation in schools is unconstitutional according to the principle of segregated but equally . Others say the foundation took place in Indianola . The leader was Robert B. Patterson of Indianola. He was the operator of a plantation and the former captain of the Mississippi State University football team . Further chapters were soon founded in other places.

Patterson and his supporters founded the WCC in response to the growing activity of the Regional Council of Negro Leadership , a civil rights organization headed by TRM Howard, founded in 1951 in the black-only town of Mound Bayou . Mound Bayou was forty miles from Indianola. While he was an adult against such organizations, Patterson was friends with Aaron Henry, who later was active in the RCNL and later became the head of the Mississippi NAACP .

Within a few months, the WCC had gained new members and established new chapters outside of Mississippi , all over the Deep South . It often had the support of important people in the respective places, in business, civil society and sometimes also religious authorities.

Economic damage and violence

Unlike the Ku Klux Klan , the members of the WCC met openly and they “followed the Klan's agenda with the actions of the Rotary Club .” The group avoided the use of violence and relied on economic and political tactics against civil rights activists. But historian Charles M. Payne noted that contrary to official statements, the WCC's intimidation campaigns were often followed by violence. Occasionally some local councils directly incited violence. Senator James Eastland said at a large council meeting in Montgomery , on the occasion of the bus boycott , alluding to the American Declaration of Independence :

“When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows and arrows, 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. "

“If it should become necessary in the development of mankind to abolish the Negro race, then appropriate methods should be used. These include firearms, bows and arrows, twins and knives. We take the following truth for granted, that all whites were created equal and with certain rights and these include life, freedom and the pursuit of dead niggers. "

- New York Post : The Negroes of Montgomery , June 15-19 , 1956

The White Citizens Councils used economic repression against African Americans who supported desegregation and electoral rights or who belonged to the NAACP. This included taking out mortgage loans , denying loans and credits, and boycotting businesses owned by blacks. In some cities, lists of the names of NAACP supporters and people who had signed anti-segregation petitions were published in local newspapers, asking them to do economic harm. For example, in 1955 in Yazoo City , Mississippi, the names of 53 supporters of a petition on racial integration in schools were published in a local newspaper. These individuals soon lost their jobs and their loans were terminated. As Charles Payne put it, the councils unleashed a "wave of economic reprisals" against anyone - white and black - who posed a threat to the status quo.

Medgar Evers' first work for the NAACP at the national level was interviewing Mississippi people who were intimidated by the WCC. These gave affidavits to be used as evidence against the councils if necessary. Evers was murdered by Byron De La Beckwith , a member of WCC and Ku Klux Klan. His defense was funded by the White Citizens Council.

Political influence

Joe D. Waggonner Jr.

Many local and state politicians were members of the councils, which gave the organization some influence over the law in some states. In Mississippi funded State Sovereignty Commission , the Citizens Councils of up to 50,000 US dollars per year. This government agency also passed information to the councils from investigations and surveillance of civil rights activists. For example, Ney Williams was both a director at Citizens Council and an advisor to Ross Barnett , the governor of Mississippi. Barnett himself was a member of the council, as was Allen C. Thompson , the mayor of Jackson . In 1955, during the Montgomery bus boycott , all three members of the city commission declared on television that they had joined the Citizens Council.

According to Numan Bartley, the Citizens Council in Louisiana was originally created by the local Joint Legislative Committee to maintain racial segregation. The council leadership there included the State Senator and candidate for governorship William Rainach , the later member of the US House of Representatives Joe D. Waggonner Jr. , the publisher Ned Touchstone and Judge Leander Perez, who politically the Parishes Plaquemines and St. Bernard controlled. On July 16, 1956, under "massive pressure from the White Citizens Councils", the Louisiana State Legislature passed an amendment to the Louisiana Constitution that enshrined segregation in almost every aspect of public life. The extension was signed on July 16, 1956 by Governor Earl Long and was effective from October 15. An excerpt from this reads:

“An Act to prohibit all interracial dancing, social functions, entertainments, athletic training, games, sports, or contests and other such activities; to provide for separate seating and other facilities for white and negroes [lower case in original] ... 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. "

“A law prohibiting multiracial dancing, social functions, entertainment, athletic education, games, sports or competitions, or similar activities; the provision of separate seats and other facilities for whites and negroes ... That all persons, firms and corporations are prohibited from financing, arranging, participating or allowing on their premises ... such activities that involve personal or social contact , in which the participants are members of the white and the Negro race ... That white people are forbidden to violate the seating arrangement and to use sanitary or other facilities which are intended for the members of the Negro race. That negroes are forbidden to violate the seating arrangement and to use sanitary or other facilities which are intended for whites. "

Segregation in schools and the decline of the council

In the second half of the 1950s, the White Citizens Council published children's books that stated that there was segregation in heaven .

In Mississippi , racial integration in schools was prevented until 1964, also through the commitment of the WCC. As the desegregation of schools continued to advance, so-called council schools were founded in some municipalities , private schools which could only be attended by white children. Many of these Segregation Academies are still open today, although not all of them accept whites only.

In the 1970s, the WCC's influence waned after southern white attitudes toward desegregation began to change. Previously, various civil rights laws had been passed in the 1960s, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 . The federal government also increasingly enforced civil rights in the south. WCC members founded the Council of Conservative Citizens in 1985 as a successor organization.

literature

  • Neil R. McMillen: The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64 , University of Illinois Press, 1994, ISBN 9780252064418

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c University of Southern Mississippi : Civil Rights Documentation Project: July 11, 1954 , accessed October 21, 2013
  2. ↑ a b c Anti Defamation League : Council of Conservative Citizens ( Memento of the original dated August 4, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.adl.org archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed October 21, 2013
  3. ^ A b The Jackson Sun: White Citizens' Councils aimed to maintain 'Southern way of life' , accessed October 22, 2013
  4. ↑ Gene Roberts & Hank Klibanoff: The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation , Alfred A. Knopf, New York City in 2006, ISBN 0-679-40381-7 , p 66
  5. ^ History News Network: The Real Story of the White Citizens' Council, December 23, 2010, accessed October 22, 2013
  6. ↑ David T. Beito & Linda Royster: Black maverick: TRM Howard's fight for civil rights and economic power , University of Illinois Press, 2009, ISBN 9780252034206 , pp. 95-97
  7. ↑ a b c Charles M. Payne: I've got the light of freedom: the organizing tradition and the Mississippi freedom struggle , University of California Press, 2007, ISBN 9780520251762 , pp. 34–35 ( online at Google Books )
  8. ↑ John Dittmer: Local people: the struggle for civil rights in Mississippi , University of Illinois Press, 1995, ISBN 9780252065071 , pp. 46-48 ( online at Google Books )
  9. ^ Neil R. McMillen: The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64 , University of Illinois Press, 1971, ISBN 025200177X , p. 211
  10. ^ The Nation : Respectable Racism, October 22, 1955, reprinted in Reporting Civil Rights: American journalism, 1941-1963 by Dan Wakefield, Library of America , 2003, ISBN 9781931082280 , pp. 222-227
  11. ↑ Maryanne Vollers: Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De LA Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South , Little Brown & Co, 1995, ISBN 9780316914857 , pp. 57-58 ( online at Google Books )
  12. ^ Afro-American Red Star: Newest Navy Vessel Named for Civil Rights Martyr Medgar Evers of November 19, 2011
  13. ^ The American Journal of Sociology: The Economics of Movement Success: Business Responses to Civil Rights Mobilization , Issue 111, January 2006
  14. ^ Maryanne Vollers: Ghosts of Mississippi: The Murder of Medgar Evers, the Trials of Byron De La Beckwith, and the Haunting of the New South , Little Brown & Co, 1995, ISBN 9780316914857 , p. 75
  15. ↑ Look: How a Secret Deal Prevented a Massacre at Ole Miss, December 31, 1962, reprinted in Reporting Civil Rights: American journalism, 1941-1963 by Dan Wakefield, Library of America, 2003, ISBN 9781931082280 , pp. 671-701
  16. ^ New York Times : NAACP Leader Slain in Jackson; Protests Mount, June 13, 1963, reprinted in Reporting Civil Rights: American journalism, 1941-1963 by Dan Wakefield, Library of America, 2003, ISBN 9781931082280 , pp. 831-835
  17. ^ Dissent: The Bus Boycott in Montgomery , published in the winter of 1956, reprinted in Reporting Civil Rights: American journalism, 1941-1963 by Dan Wakefield, Library of America, 2003, ISBN 9781931082280 , pp. 252-265
  18. ↑ Numan V. Bartley: The rise of massive resistance: race and politics in the South during the 1950s , LSU Press, 2011, ISBN 9780807124192 , pp. 86 ff.
  19. ^ Neil R. McMillen: The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64 , University of Illinois Press, 1971, ISBN 025200177X , pp. 59-72
  20. ^ A b The Providence Journal & Evening Bulletin: You Can't Legislate Human Relations of October 20 & 22, 1957, reprinted in Reporting Civil Rights: American journalism, 1941–1963 by Dan Wakefield, Library of America, 2003, ISBN 9781931082280 , Pp. 390-395
  21. ↑ Timothy B. Tyson: Blood Done Sign My Name: A True Story , Random House, 2005, ISBN 9781400083114 , p. 182
  22. ↑ Democracy Now !: "Barbour is an Unreconstructed Southerner": Prof. John Dittmer of Mississippi Governor's Praise of White Citizens' Councils , accessed October 21, 2013 - Video report from Democracy Now!
  23. ^ Neil R. McMillen: The Citizens' Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-64 , University of Illinois Press, 1971, ISBN 025200177X , p. 301