jul 1, 1954 - Citizens Councils

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Inspired by Judge Tom P. Brady's virulent condemnation of Brown - a speech, then pamphlet, titled "Black Monday" - a plantation manager in Sunflower County, Mississippi, Robert P. Patterson, organized the first Citizens Council in July 1954. The movement spread like wildfire [...] At their peak, in 1956, the Citizens Councils boasted perhaps 250,000 members. Many were doctors, lawyers, farmers, businessmen, politicians, and school superintendents. Banding together in state associations, and cooperating closely across the region, the Citizens Councils implemented a milti-faceted strategy designed to stop the emerging civil rights movement in its tracks. They flooded the South with racist propaganda , subjected civil rights activists to threats and economic pressure, erected new barriers to black voters, tried to spress the NAACP, condemned white liberals as traitors, and made segregation, and how to defend it, the central issue in Southern politics. The NAACP soon fell to the Citizens Councils' presence. -Better Day Coming, Adam Fairclough

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