Capital Citizens' Council

The Capital Citizens' Council (CCC) opposed the desegregation of public schools during the Little Rock Crisis of 1957. The CCC's leadership described members as a "glorious band of Christian patriots ... standing by the South in her hour of need."

The Capital Citizens' Council was part of a broader movement of citizens' councils established in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. Members saw school integration as part of an effort to support the "mongrelization" of the white race in the South by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). The Capital Citizens' Council was established in September 1956 by L. D. Poynter. The chapter was led by Baptist minister Wesley Pruden and lawyer Amis Guthridge. Members were often small business proprietors in the area; about forty percent of the total membership was comprised of local middle-class and lower-class merchants.

References

• Graeme Cope, "'Honest White People of the Middle and Lower Classes'? A Profile of the Capital Citizens' Council," Arkansas Historical Quarterly 61.1 (Spring 2002): 36-59.