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the slogan "States' Rights/Racial Purity" that appeared on signs, billboards, pamphlets, letter heads, and member regalia. Membership typically followed
Patterson's example, and came from the ranks of the South's upper crust of attorneys, judges, lawmakers and other civil servants, but also heads of agricultural industries, automobile dealers, accountants, teachers, university professors and administrators, engineers, scientists, and administrators. Because of its middle class membership, many critics began calling the White Citizens' Councils organization the "uptown Klan." Citizens' Councilors sought more peaceful organized resistance to integrated schooling mandated by the courts when compared to the Ku Klux Klan's tactics. The latter preferred murder, arson, bombings, and terroristic campaigns, while the Citizens' Councils relied on economic intimidation.
258:. In 1954, a 9-0 majority decision struck down a long standing legal precedent in which "separate but equal" schools made segregation consistent with the U.S.Constitution (especially components of the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause). The decision mostly affected the Deep South states and a few midwestern ones as the Court declared that "segregation has no place in public education." As states scrambled to unify racially separate schools, many Deep South states such as Mississippi sought delay and obfuscation, oftentimes condemning the Court for foisting integrated public education onto a public that ostensibly did not want it. Yet prominent citizens in civic organizations as well as in the agricultural economy such as Patterson made sure the "all deliberate speed" to unify schools in the Court's decision would be delayed indefinitely.
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ordered the school to violate a federal court order that touched off a state-federal issue that resolved only after
President Dwight D. Eisenhower sent in U.S. Army troops and federalized the Arkansas National Guard to restore order. In New Orleans, Councilors organized a group of angry parents who called themselves "the Cheerleaders" to oppose the admission of Black student Ruby Bridges at Frantz Elementary School (Bridges had to have federal protection for her entire first grade year). New Orleans Councils also organized what was called the "high school riot" in which white high school students disrupted traffic downtown and attacked the mayor's office, destroying property and screaming racial epithets.
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result would be uproar, violence, and instability that would invite federal authority to come in and rule the white people of the state in a tyrannical fashion. In keeping with his ideas about state-federal power and the limits therein, Patterson also joined a
Councils offshoot segregationist organization in the 1960s called the Federation for Constitutional Government. Between 1955 and 1971 when Mississippi's public schools finally achieved some meaningful integration (and the state formally unified its school system), Patterson and the Councils' activities had successfully staved off desegregation for sixteen years.
247:, along with a number of civic organizations such as the Farm Bureau Federation, Mississippi Economic Council, the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution, and the American Legion all lobbied vigorously for a robust defense of segregated schools. Since the founding of Mississippi's public education system in the 1870s, white students attended much better funded and organized schools while African Americans had few choices but to attend hopelessly underfunded and poorly equipped schools. The
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especially as desegregation contests in local areas increased attention on the school integration crisis. The
Councils proved violent in many hot spots where desegregation attempts occurred such as in Little Rock in 1957 to 1960, New Orleans in 1960 and 1961, in Clinton, Tennessee in the same years. Alabama and New Jersey Councilors moved into Clinton, Tennessee to exploit the school desegregation attempts there, even threatening to bomb the school if Black students entered. Governor
286:, that was designed to resemble the evening news. Each of these communications techniques broadcast Council ideology of strict racial segregation, white supremacy, and Black inferiority. The communications tools spread virulent racial stereotypes about African Americans while selling the wonders of a segregated society as having few if any problems associated with race relations. Patterson was also instrumental in sending speakers such as African American
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white school admission faced being fired from their jobs, having loans called in, and evicted from their homes. Patterson led this effort in
Mississippi's state chapter of the White Citizens' Councils. As an early organizer, he served the White Citizens' Councils organization as a fund raiser, speaker, treasurer, and public relations associate. In the 1960s, Patterson formed the nucleus of a team that produced its own newspaper,
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television program to exploit the violence oftentimes caused by segregationists and not the Black students hoping to desegregate a local white school. In other words, Patterson helped craft a media message to
Mississippians that if schools integrated or even allowed some token desegregation, then the
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decision, a number of
African American parents began registering their children in Mississippi's white schools. While Klan members harassed, threatened, and even ran whole families out of town in retaliation, Councilors applied "economic intimidation." Any Black parent registering their children for
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The White
Citizens' Councils claimed some 2 million members between 1959 and 1960, although the organization never made its membership rolls public to confirm that number. Membership was pervasive in Deep South states, and also enjoyed vigorous membership in North Carolina, Virginia, and Kentucky,
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to northern venues to proclaim that
African Americans enjoyed segregated society. The Councils were insistent that integration was being forced onto Mississippians and southerners because of a conspiracy of international communism, the American Left, and Zionist activists, maintaining that African
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Patterson's initial meeting in July of 1955 touched off a brief, but region wide movement of white supremacists. Citizens' Councils sprang up quickly across
Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee, Arkansas, eastern Texas, Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina. The organization took as its motto
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even sent in 600 National Guard troops to keep order. In the Little Rock example, angry whites beat white and Black journalists trying to report on the school crisis there, and many were Council members that organized the counter protest in 1957 outside of Central High. Governor Orval Faubus then
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leaders in Jackson sought legal relief from the Court's decision and had already implemented a plan to build up Black schools so as to ward off any ruling by the federal judiciary, arguing that the improved newer schools truly made public education equal among whites and Blacks in Mississippi.
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decision, Patterson formed the state's and region's first Citizens' Council on July 11, 1955. Nearly 100 towns-folk met that evening and decided on a plan to resist implementation of any federal judiciary rulings to integrate local Sunflower County and Indianola schools. In the meantime, state
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Americans were mere "dupes" caught into a web of intrigue and deception. The Councils' media relations department and Patterson also used their communications tools such as the newspaper and Forum television program to applaud South African apartheid.
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began a legal strategy that bore fruit by 1954. Several state challenges to dual schools or Jim Crow school systems, as they were called in the former Confederate states, reached the U.S. Supreme Court under the heading
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Neil R. McMillen, The Citizens' Councils: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-1964 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1971).
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Each of these school desegregation attempts caused crises before 1961, and Patterson and the Mississippi Councils used their newspaper and
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championship team, the only undefeated team in the school's history. In 1942 he was made captain. That year he played in the
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In Sunflower County, Mississippi near Indianola, and acting on a local judge's call for organized resistance to the
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he succeeded so emphatically that he was awarded a four-year scholarship. He was on the 1940
98:(December 13, 1921 – September 21, 2017) was an American plantation manager and former
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for Berlin by General Gavin, who later played an important part in integrating the Army.
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As a boy in Clarksdale, he was close friends—"playing, fishing, hunting, wrestling"—with
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The Hardest Deal of All: The Battle Over School Integration in Mississippi, 1870-1980
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436:"Mississippi State University M-Club Alumni Association & Sports Hall of Fame"
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School of Agriculture in 1943. At 17 he hitchhiked from Clarksdale to
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Race and Democracy: The Civil Rights Struggle in Louisiana, 1915-1972
353:"Should the Mississippi Files Have Been Re-Opened? No, because ..."
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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
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end. He was named to the MSU Sports Hall of Fame in 1995.
331:"Robert Boyd Patterson Sr of Carrollton, Mississippi"
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Resisting Equality: The Citizens' Council, 1954-1969
549:(Baton Rouge: University of Louisiana Press, 2018).
106:, a white supremacist organization, established in
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510:(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005).
373:"The Real Story of the White Citizens' Council"
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662:United States Army personnel of World War II
562:(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005).
647:Mississippi State Bulldogs football players
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255:Brown v. Board of Education, Topeka, Kansas
461:""Full Text of 'Reveille" (1943 yearbook)"
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131:, who grew up to become a founder of the
102:star who is known for founding the first
224:. He made 16 parachute jumps, including
667:People from Carroll County, Mississippi
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89:Founder of the Citizens' Councils, 1954
404:"Patterson recalls Miami trip in '41"
402:Cleveland, Rick (December 24, 2014).
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371:Cobb, James C. (December 23, 2010).
333:. Williams & Lord Funeral Home,
137:Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
133:Regional Council of Negro Leadership
16:American football player (1921–2017)
193:agricultural fraternity as well as
185:At Mississippi State he pledged to
486:"The 82nd Military Police Platoon"
282:, and a television-style program,
243:In the 1950s, Mississippi's State
143:and the Mississippi branch of the
141:Council of Federated Organizations
116:decision. In 1966 he helped found
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220:. He was a paratrooper with the
178:game and was selected as an All
488:. The 82nd Airborne during WWII
216:, at 24 attaining the rank of
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150:Patterson graduated from the
465:Mississippi State University
440:Mississippi State University
110:in 1954, in response to the
212:Patterson was a veteran of
113:Brown v. Board of Education
96:Robert Boyd "Tut" Patterson
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657:Citizens' Councils members
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176:Blue-Gray College All Star
152:Mississippi State College
166:, but when placed as an
577:The Hardest Deal of All
530:The Hardest Deal of All
423:Evers & Peters 1967
390:Evers & Peters 1967
245:Department of Education
180:Southeastern Conference
64:Carrollton, Mississippi
45:Clarksdale, Mississippi
335:Greenwood, Mississippi
273:Following the Court's
222:82nd Airborne Division
108:Indianola, Mississippi
573:The Citizens' Council
534:The Citizens' Council
197:and the honors clubs
189:. He was a member of
545:Stephanie R. Rolph,
409:Hattiesburg American
377:History News Network
158:to try out with the
75:Executive Secretary,
506:Charles C. Bolton,
392:, pp. 232–233.
351:(August 30, 1998).
234:Battle of the Bulge
207:Omicron Delta Kappa
187:Sigma Alpha Epsilon
25:Robert B. Patterson
652:Citizens' Councils
604:For Us, The Living
357:The New York Times
104:Citizens' Councils
79:Citizens' Councils
56:September 21, 2017
619:978-0-87805-841-9
558:Adam Fairclough,
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58:(2017-09-21)
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642:2017 deaths
637:1921 births
280:The Citizen
172:Orange Bowl
129:Aaron Henry
631:Categories
571:McMillen,
312:References
191:Alpha Zeta
156:Starkville
37:1921-12-13
610:Doubleday
122:Greenwood
600:(1967).
528:Bolton,
203:Blue Key
160:Bulldogs
232:in the
120:, near
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164:center
139:, the
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47:, U.S.
305:Forum
284:Forum
275:Brown
263:Brown
218:major
145:NAACP
614:ISBN
494:2017
472:2017
447:2017
205:and
195:ROTC
53:Died
31:Born
168:end
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