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Citizens' Councils
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Citizens' Councils (White Citizens' Councils)
White Citizens Council.jpg
Citizens' Councils logo
Abbreviation
WCC
Successor
Council of Conservative Citizens
Formation
July 11, 1954; 62 years ago
Membership
60,000 (1955)
Founder
Robert Patterson
The Citizens' Councils (also referred to as White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South. The first was formed on July 11, 1954.[1] After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America. With about 60,000 members across the United States,[2] mostly in the South, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of schools, but they also opposed voter registration efforts and integration of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. Members used severe intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and violence against citizens and civil-rights activists.
By the 1970s, following passage of federal civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s and enforcement of constitutional rights by the federal government, the influence of the Councils had waned considerably yet remained an institutional basis for the majority of white residents in Mississippi. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Councils is the St. Louis based Council of Conservative Citizens, founded in 1985[2] to continue collaborations between Ku Klux Klan and white supremacist political agendas in America. Republican politician and past Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott of Mississippi was a member[3] while SC Senator Jesse Helms and GA Representative Bob Barr were both strong supporters of the Council of Conservative Citizens; David Duke also spoke at a fund raising event, while Patrick Buchanan's campaign manager was linked to both Duke and the Council.[4] In 1996, a Charleston, SC, drive-by shooting by Klan members of three African American males occurred after a Council rally; Dylann Roof, responsible for the 2015 murder of nine Emanuel AME church members in Charleston, espoused Council of Conservative Citizens rhetoric in a manifesto.[5]