A Different Day by Greta de Jong

Author:Greta de Jong
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2010-12-27T05:00:00+00:00

Southern segregationists capitalized on the repressive political climate to attack the NAACP. In 1956 Louisiana attorney general Fred LeBlanc charged that communists had infiltrated the organization and attempted to force local branches to make their membership lists public by invoking an old law that had been passed to combat Klan activity in the 1920s. NAACP leaders refused to reveal members’ names for fear of making them vulnerable to reprisals by white supremacists. A state court then enjoined the NAACP from operating in Louisiana until the membership lists were disclosed. Though they could not meet openly, local people maintained support for civil rights activity by sending money to the national office and establishing alternative organizations to continue the struggle in their own communities. With the state threatening further legal action unless the NAACP filed its membership lists by 31 December, a few branches complied with the attorney general's request. Fear of reprisals caused many people to withdraw from open affiliation with the NAACP. Between 1955 and 1957 membership in Louisiana dropped from 13,190 to 1,698, and most branches outside of the major cities disintegrated. At the end of the decade one report stated that the NAACP had been “grievously injured to the extent of almost total extinction” by legislative proceedings, economic reprisals, and other forms of intimidation against its members and supporters.73

In the late 1950s and early 1960s white supremacists rolled back many of the gains in voter registration that black Louisianans had made in the post-war years. The Citizens’ Councils began a campaign to purge African Americans from the rolls by challenging the registration of “unqualified” people, pressuring registrars to administer the literacy and constitutional interpretation tests more stringently, and intimidating black people to discourage them from attempting to register. In April 1956 Daniel Byrd reported: “Make no mistake about it the Citizen's Council[s] are following the pattern instituted by the White South during reconstruction. . . . Unless we can stop them, in the next several months almost all Negroes will be disfranchised in Louisiana.” Byrd's prediction came close to being realized in East Feliciana Parish, where registrar Charles S. Kilbourne was ordered to join the local Citizens’ Council or lose his job. Kilbourne resigned from the position rather than comply with the request, and in 1958 council leaders replaced him with Henry E. Palmer. The Citizens’ Council then challenged the registration of every voter in the parish, forcing people to reregister. Many residents failed to pass the tests Palmer administered, and within two years the number of black people registered in East Feliciana dropped from 1,361 to 82. Statewide, the Citizens’ Councils succeeded in removing more than 15,000 African Americans from the rolls between 1956 and 1959.74

The purges of black voters were part of the councils’ campaign of massive resistance to school desegregation, an effort that received support from state and local officials as well as thousands of white activists across the state. Political leaders and newspaper editors condemned the Supreme Court's Brown decision, complaining that it violated

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