White Citizens' Councils

White Citizens' Councils were established during the 1950s in reaction to federal initiatives to end racial segregation [3] in the South. Historically, they were similar to the various white supremacy groups that grew out of the extreme racial tensions defining southern culture after the Civil War [4]. The nation's first White Citizens' Council was founded in July 1954 in Indianola, Miss., in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court's school desegregation [5] ruling in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. As part of the massive resistance that swept across the South in the mid-1950s, the White Citizens' Council embarked on a mission to interpose the Brown decision, attack the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People [6], and build support through a nationwide propaganda campaign. Citizens' councils appeared in other states, including North Carolina, where the most influential group, the White Patriots [2], was formed on 22 Aug. 1955 to circumvent the Brown ruling.

These citizens' councils were careful to distinguish themselves rhetorically from the more explicit forms of Jim Crow oppression-particularly the Ku Klux Klan [7]-by declaring their disdain for violence. Despite this public stance, individual members did become linked to acts of violence, and the councils greatly contributed to the racial unrest in the mid- to late-1950s South.

Additional Resources:

Hague, Euan. The Citizens’ Council. http://www.citizenscouncils.com/ [9] (accessed September 6, 2012).

"White Citizens’ Councils (WCC)." Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University. http://mlk-kpp01.stanford.edu/index.php/encyclopedia/encyclopedia/enc_white_citizens_councils_wcc/ [10] (accessed September 6, 2012).

Lewis, George. "'Scientific Certainty': Wesley Critz George, Racial Science and Organised White Resistance in North Carolina, 1954-1962." Journal of American Studies 38. No. 2. August 2004. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27557515 [11]  (accessed September 6, 2012).

Thayer, George. The Farther Shores of Politics: The American Political Fringe Today. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1967. p. 107-123.