Capital Citizens' Council

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

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, both hosts of the radio show "Country Church." Callers to the show and the governor's office convinced Orval Faubus to resist integration in the Little Rock School District.

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.