White Citizens' Councils Founded With Business Elite Backing to Resist Integration

Two months after the Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Mississippi Circuit Court Judge Tom P. Brady delivers a strident speech opposing integration that is later expanded into a ninety-page tract titled “Black Monday” and distributed widely as a rallying cry for organized white resistance. On July 11, 1954, Robert B. Patterson, a plantation manager and former Mississippi State University football captain, forms the first White Citizens’ Council in Indianola, Mississippi, bringing together business and civic leaders to design a plan to preserve segregation.

The Citizens’ Councils attract middle to upper-class civilians—politicians, doctors, lawyers, teachers, bankers, and businessmen—leading the movement to encompass virtually Mississippi’s entire white business class. Unlike the Ku Klux Klan, the Councils are perceived as the “uptown Klan,” using economic pressure and political influence rather than violence. Council members use their connections to influential lawmakers, editors, business people, and state officials to enact pro-segregation legislation, exert economic pressure on civil rights supporters, intimidate African Americans attempting to register to vote, and create publicity for anti-integration viewpoints.

By October 1954, rapid growth leads to formation of the Association of Citizens’ Councils of Mississippi (ACC), providing access to broader funding and more diverse activities. One year after formation, 250 White Citizens’ Councils operate throughout the South with 60,000 members. By 1956, active Councils operate in 30 states with membership reaching 250,000.

The Councils’ majority funding comes from member dues—especially wealthy members of society—and grants from the publicly-funded Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission (created March 1956), which contributes funds and forms a covert surveillance network. From 1960 to 1964, the Sovereignty Commission provides $193,500 in documented monthly grants to Citizens’ Councils. Elected officials, law enforcement members, and white business leaders work together through the Councils to detect and discourage civil rights activity through the collective economic power that its members hold.

This infrastructure establishes the organizational model for business-backed political coordination that is later adapted by conservative movement organizations. The Citizens’ Councils’ use of economic pressure, political networking, and coordination between business elites and government officials provides a template for later conservative infrastructure, including think tanks, lobbying organizations, and the New Right coalition. When the Councils decline in the 1970s following civil rights legislation, their mailing lists and board members transition to the Council of Conservative Citizens (founded 1985), with original founder Robert Patterson joining the new organization.