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The Council of Conservative Citizens (abbreviated CCC or CofCC) is a controversial American paleoconservative political organization that supports European and Southern Heritage. It is headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri, and its most active chapter is in Mississippi. Other states with active chapters include Florida, Georgia, Alabama, Louisiana, Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and New York. Sporadic CofCC activities occur in other parts of the country as well. The Southern Poverty Law Center considers the Council of Conservative Citizens a racist organization.

Its executive committee is made up of Gordon Lee Baum, Bill Lord, and Tom Dover. The 16 member board of directors includes Leonard Wilson, Sam Dickson, and AJ Barker. Lester Maddox, the late former segregationist governor of Georgia, was a charter member of the CofCC. His last public appearance, before his death, was at the 2002 CofCC National Conference. Other notable charter members include Major Bob Paterson, first Provost Marshall for the American sector of Berlin, and John Rarick, a conservative former congressman who left the Democrats to form a third party.

CofCC CEO, is St. Louis attorney Gordon L. Baum, Esq. Baum has received the highest state award from three states. He is an honorary colonel in Georgia and Alabama, as well a "Fellow Traveler" in Arkansas. Baum founded the St. Louis Citizens Council when he was 16 years old. He has appeared on the Jesse Jackson show, Bill O'Reilly, and many more.

The CofCC publishes the Citizens Informer newsletter quarterly. Its most recent editor was Samuel Francis (died 2005), and the editorial board includes Baum, Virginia Abernethy (past editor), Sam G. Dickson, Wayne Lutten, and Jared Taylor. Recent contributing authors of the Citizen Informer have included columnist Illana Mercer, columnist Lawrence Auster, author William Flax, esq., and former national director of the libertarian party Terry Von Mitchell. Numerous Mississippi businesses advertise in the Citizen Informer, most notably the famous Crystal Grill.

The CofCC has a non-profit foundation, the Conservative Citizens Foundation, which is currently raising money for a Confederate monument project.

Issues

The CofCC considers itself a traditional Conservative group opposing Liberals and Neoconservatives and they also seek to promote some of the ideals of the Confederate States of America. Its specific issues include states rights, race relations, White separatism, and conservative Protestant Christianity. They have attacked Martin Luther King, Abraham Lincoln, the Civil Rights Movement, and the Frankfurt School on their website. Consistent with paleoconservatism, they regard American culture as an offshoot of the European cultural tradition. The Council of Conservative Citizens is currently fighting against immigration, affirmative action and racial quotas, forced busing for school integration, and gun control. The CofCC also looks favorably towards European nationalist and anti-immigration groups such as British National Party, Front National, and Vlaams Belang. Opposition to illegal immigration probably is the dominant CofCC issue now and has been for the past several years.

The CofCC is considered by the Southern Poverty Law Center to be part of the "neo-confederate movement." The NAACP, SPLC (which lists it as a "hate group"), ADL, and even some conservative groups consider the Council of Conservative Citizens a racist organization, pointing to what they perceive as its advocacy of white supremacy.The group denies this charge. The Council of Conservative Citizens often resorts to what opponents consider slanted and inflammatory language and images to promote its message. An April 2005 photo essay on the CofCC website shows gruesome pictures of decapitated, burnt and mangled bodies of white victims of violence in South Africa while the caption states that whites may one day become a minority in the United States.[http://web.archive.org/web/20050204012636/cofcc.org/shelby.htm

In 2005 the CofCC staged the largest protest ever held in front of the offices of the SPLC in Montgomery, Alabama. About 72 members demonstrated and received state-wide publicity. The CofCC has also protested speaking engagements by Morris Dees in Alabama, Mississippi, Missouri, Indiana, and South Carolina.

Mississippi

In Mississippi there are several chapters that are working closely with private academies. The "academies" (many of which were originally called "council schools") in Mississippi are inexpensive private schools that provide whites with an alternative to sending their children to majority-black public schools.

Mississippi is the only state that has major politicians who are open CofCC members, including State Senators and State Representatives. The CCC once claimed 34 members in the Mississippi legislature *

Every four years, Mississippi State Chairman Bill Lord holds the Blackhawk Rally in Blackhawk, Mississippi. The rally raises money for the Carroll County Academy busing association that provides buses for private academies. The rally is co-sponsored by the CofCC and other county organizations.

Haley Barbour, a long-time Republican National Committee chairman and later a candidate for Governor of Mississippi, spoke at a Blackhawk Rally. A photograph of Barbour with CofCC members appeared on the CofCC webpage, and a firestorm of media demanded that Barbour ask for his picture to be removed from the site. Barbour refused. His popularity rose shortly after that and he became Mississippi's current governor.

South Carolina

The South Carolina CofCC held the largest anti-amnesty rally in the nation with over 1,000 in Greenville, SC on April 29th. After WYFF NBC Greenville falsly reported that only "dozens attended," the SC CofCC demonstrated in front of their station with about 125 people.

The Council of Conservative Citizens held mass demonstrations in South Carolina between 1993 and 2000 to keep the Confederate flag on the state house dome. Demonstrations were held in the upstate, down to the tourist coast in Myrtle Coast and Hilton Head Island. The rallies started as a response to NAACP rallies calling for the flag to come down. The CofCC fought a lone battle to keep the flag up for seven years. After a 1999, when the CofCC drew 1,500 demonstrators to the capital other groups asked to form a coalition. In 2000, a coalition march drew 8,000 people. However, several coalition members endorsed a compromise that led to the flag coming down and being placed in front of the statehouse on the Confederate Soldier statue.

History

The CofCC was founded in 1988 in Atlanta, Georgia and is now headquartered in St. Louis, Missouri. The CofCC was formed by various leaders of the old White Citizens' Council, which was a network of racist organizations in the 1950s, 60s, and 70s. Gordon Lee Baum is the current national leader.

In 1998, several members of the CofCC attended an event hosted by Jean-Marie Le Pen's Front National party. The delegation from the CofCC presented Le Pen a Confederate flag; which had been flown over the South Carolina state capitol building.*

The CofCC became involved in national politics during the late 1990s when it was discovered by journalists and researchers that many right-wing politicians, including Bob Barr, had belonged to or spoken at CofCC functions, saying later in Barr's case that he found the groups' racial views to be "repugnant" and had not realized the nature of the group when he agreed to attend, had either attended the group's meetings, corresponded with its leaders, and/or spoken favorably of it. Subsequently it was found that U.S. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott had also spoken at a CofCC meeting. In the ensuing controvsersy the CofCC was denounced by the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, Jim Nicholson, for holding "racist views". Other national and state politicians who have given speeches or attended CofCC meetings include former Senator Jesse Helms, and former governors H. Guy Hunt of Alabama and Kirk Fordice of Mississippi. (Former House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt also attended event of the organization's St. Louis predecessor the "Metro-South Citizens Council" shortly before the name change in the mid-1980s an event he has repeatedly referred to as a mistake. *)

The SPLC and the Miami Herald tallied a further 38 federal, state, and local polticians who appeared at CofCC events between 2000 and 2004.

The ADL states the following politicians are members or have spoke at meatings. Senator Trent Lott, Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, Mississippi state senators Gary Jackson, and Dean Kirby, several Mississippi state representatives. Ex-Governors Guy Hunt of Alabama, and Kirk Fordice of Mississippi, also have spoke at CCC meetings.

U.S. Rep. Roger Wicker *is said to have attended.

In 2005, the Council of Conservative Citizens held their National Conference in Montgomery, Alabama. George Wallace Jr., an Alabama Public Service Commissioner and former State Treasurer, and Sonny Landham, an actor, spoke at the conference.

See also

External links

Politics and race | Conservatism | Conservative organizations in the United States | Southern United States | Paleoconservatism

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Council of Conservative Citizens".

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