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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〔(【引用サイトリンク】 July 11, 1954 )〕 After 1956, it was known as the Citizens' Councils of America. With about 60,000 members across the United States,〔(【引用サイトリンク】 Council of Conservative Citizens )〕 mostly in the South, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of schools, but they also supported segregation of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. Members used severe intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and occasionally violence against 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. The successor organization to the White Citizens' Councils is the Council of Conservative Citizens, founded in 1985.〔 ==History== In 1954 the US Supreme Court ruled in ''Brown vs. Board of Education'' that legal segregation of public schools was unconstitutional. Some sources claim that the White Citizens' Council first started after this in Greenwood, Mississippi.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 White Citizens' Councils aimed to maintain 'Southern way of life' )〕 Others say that it originated in Indianola, Mississippi. The recognized leader was Robert B. Patterson of Indianola,〔 a plantation manager and a former captain of the Mississippi State University football team. Additional chapters soon arose in other communities in the South. At this time, most southern states had legal racial segregation of all public facilities, dating from the late 19th century; in places where laws did not require segregation, Jim Crow custom generally enforced it. From 1890 to 1908, the states had disfranchised most blacks and many poor whites by passing new constitutions and other laws making voter registration and elections more difficult. Despite civil rights organizations winning some legal challenges, most blacks in the 1950s were still disfranchised in the South and remained so until after passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Patterson and his followers formed the WCC in part to respond to increased activism by the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), a grassroots civil rights organization organized in 1951 by T. R. M. Howard of the all-black town Mound Bayou, Mississippi. Mound Bayou was 40 miles from Indianola. Although as an adult Patterson opposed African-American civil rights groups, in boyhood in Clarksdale, he had been friends with Aaron Henry, later an official in the RCNL and the future head of the Mississippi NAACP. Within a few months, the WCC had attracted members; new chapters developed beyond Mississippi in the rest of the Deep South. The Council often had the support of the leading citizens of many communities, including business, civic and sometimes religious leaders, many of whom were members. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Citizens' Councils」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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