2012 Presidential Primaries

Haley Barbour Now Pushing $50M Civil Rights Museum In Mississippi

Jillian Rayfield | January 12, 2011, 10:47AM

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)

Following a flap over his defense of a Civil Rights-era segregationist group, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour used his final state-of-the-state address to encourage lawmakers to build a $50 million civil rights museum.

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Fox News

Oops: Fox Nation Said Barbour Easily 'Fends Off Left-Wing Racial Smears'

Eric Kleefeld | December 22, 2010, 12:24PM

In the initial fallout over Gov. Haley Barbour's (R-MS) praise of the segregationist Citizens Council groups from the Civil Rights movement era, one conservative media outlet seems to have really bungled their attempts to back up the potential White House candidate: Fox Nation.

In a profile in the Weekly Standard, Barbour had recalled the group -- which was founded to oppose school desegregation, and launched economic boycotts to cut off employment and business for African-Americans who sought out civil rights (including a famous incident in Barbour's hometown) -- in positive terms:

"You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."

Fox News came to the rescue, with a posting on their unabashedly right-wing Fox Nation website:

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2012 elections

Barbour: Segregationist Citizens Councils That I Praised Were 'Totally Indefensible'

Eric Kleefeld | December 21, 2010, 12:15PM

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), the potential presidential candidate who has come under fire for comments praising the segregationist Citizen Councils that operated during his youth in the South, has now released a statement fully condemning the organizations:

"When asked why my hometown in Mississippi did not suffer the same racial violence when I was a young man that accompanied other towns' integration efforts, I accurately said the community leadership wouldn't tolerate it and helped prevent violence there. My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation. It was a difficult and painful era for Mississippi, the rest of the country, and especially African Americans who were persecuted in that time."

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2012 elections

Historian: Segregationist Citizens Councils Were A 'Terrorist Organization'

Eric Kleefeld | December 21, 2010, 12:14PM

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)

So what was Gov. Haley Barbour doing, exactly, when he defended the reputation of the Citizens Councils, a segregationist movement that was formed to oppose the civil rights movement after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision? Barbour released a statement this afternoon, declaring: "My point was my town rejected the Ku Klux Klan, but nobody should construe that to mean I think the town leadership were saints, either. Their vehicle, called the 'Citizens Council,' is totally indefensible, as is segregation." So let's take a look at exactly who they were.

Earlier, I asked Todd Moye, an associate professor of history at the University of North Texas, and also the author of Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945-1986, for his expertise on the matter.

He called the councils a "terrorist organization."

In a profile in the Weekly Standard, Barbour recalled the group in positive terms:

"You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK. Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."

"Well he's right about the responsible business leaders part," said Moye. "At any given time in Mississippi in the 50's, the Citizens Council would have included people who led the Rotary Club and the local bank and the Boy Scout troop -- all these positions of leadership you can think of. But they were also members of this group that is, I think, a terrorist organization."

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Haley Barbour

Flashback: Citizens Councils Touted 'Racial Integrity,' 'Christian Love And Segregation'

Eric Kleefeld | December 20, 2010, 4:04PM

Let's take a further look at the Citizens Council, the Civil Rights-era segregationist group that was recently praised by potential presidential candidate Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS) -- for keeping order, he said, by deterring Ku Klux Klan activity during the civil rights movement.

Here is a Council newspaper from 1956, based in Jackson, Mississippi (which is roughly 40 miles from Barbour's hometown of Yazoo City). The paper includes such headlines as: "Christian Love And Segregation"; "Council Movement Spreads As Nation Reacts to Danger"; "Negroes Taking Over"; "Baptists Rap Mixing" (note: In 1950's American English, "rap" in this context meant to harshly criticize, similar to "blast" in a headline now); "Rape In Germany," warning of alleged rapes of German women by African-American soldiers; "Lady Veteran Raps Hospital Mixology"; and "Enemy Made Large Gains In 1955."

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Haley Barbour

Barbour Spokesman: Mississippi Gov. Is Not Racist

Eric Kleefeld | December 20, 2010, 2:08PM

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)

I just spoke with Dan Turner, the official spokesman for Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), who responded in strong terms to criticism of Barbour's recent praise for the segregationist Citizens Council groups of the Civil Rights era.

"You're trying to paint the governor as a racist," he said. "And nothing could be further from the truth."

In a profile in the Weekly Standard, Barbour credited the groups -- which were founded in Mississippi in 1954, in protest of the Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared public school segregation to be unconstitutional -- with maintaining order in his hometown by deterring Ku Klux Klan activity.

The councils were dedicated to political activities opposing civil rights, notably boycotts of pro-civil rights individuals -- including a famous instance by the group in Barbour's town. It was distinguished from the Klan by the public self-identification of its members, and its image of suits and ties as opposed to white robes and nooses.

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Haley Barbour

Barbour Praises Civil Rights-Era White Supremacist Citizens Councils

Eric Kleefeld | December 20, 2010, 11:43AM

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS)

Gov. Haley Barbour (R-MS), a potential Republican presidential candidate, has an interesting perspective on the tumults of the civil rights era that swept through his Deep South state.

As Barbour recalls it in a new profile in The Weekly Standard, things weren't so bad in his hometown of Yazoo City, which took until 1970 to integrate its schools (though the final event itself is said to have gone on peacefully). For example, Barbour says that there was no problem of Ku Klux Klan activity in the town -- thanks to the Citizens Council movement, an organization that was founded on the basis of resistance to integration and the promotion of white supremacy.

"You heard of the Citizens Councils? Up north they think it was like the KKK," said Barbour. "Where I come from it was an organization of town leaders. In Yazoo City they passed a resolution that said anybody who started a chapter of the Klan would get their ass run out of town. If you had a job, you'd lose it. If you had a store, they'd see nobody shopped there. We didn't have a problem with the Klan in Yazoo City."

The White Citizens Council movement was founded in Mississippi in 1954, shortly after the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision that outlawed segregated public schools, and was dedicated to political activities opposing civil rights -- notably boycotts of pro-civil rights individuals in Barbour's hometown, as opposed to Barbour's recollection of actions against the Klan. It was distinguished from the Klan by the public self-identification of its members, and its image of suits and ties as opposed to white robes and nooses.

In 1998, American Conservative Union head David Keene barred the Citizens Council's modern incarnation, the Council of Conservative Citizens, from the annual CPAC conference: "we kicked [them] out of CPAC because they are racists."

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