1 There were two important enforcement provisions with regard to schools. The first allowed the Department of Justice to file suit directly against local school districts. The second required that non-compliant schools lose federal education funding.Google Scholar

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4 This point may seem obvious and unnecessary to make here, but it is contested, or rather denied, by many contemporary private school advocates and by a smaller number of academics. See Peter Skerry, “Christian Schools, Racial Quotas, and the IRS,” Ethics and Public Policy (December 1980).Google Scholar

5 Anthony Lewis and the New York Times, Portrait of a Decade: The Second American Revolution (New York: Random House, 1964), 6–14, 32–45, provides an excellent example of the attitudes towards civil rights that prevailed amongst national opinion makers. William J. Simmons, interview by author, 9 March 2000, Jackson, Mississippi, notes in possession of author.Google Scholar

6 The idea of privatizing public education was first put forward by in a famous essay by Milton Friedman. Southern segregationists were the first, and to this date the largest, group to act on this call. Other suggestions by Friedman, such as the use of tuition vouchers, were also used by segregationists. Milton Friedman, Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1962); Hayek, Friedrich The Road to Serfdom (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1944); Edwards, Lee The Conservative Revolution in America (New York: The Free Press, 1999); McGirr, Lisa Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001).Google Scholar

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8 Citizens’ Council leaders have always emphatically rejected charges that their group participated in or encouraged violence. Officially the Council denounced the use of violence, but their decentralized administration left local Council groups largely to their own devices, one of which was murder. Citizens’ Council members have been linked directly to a number of civil rights murders, including those of Medgar Evers, George Lee, and Lamar Smith. On violence see Greg Kelly, “You Don't Need a Rope for a Lynching: Voting and Violence in Humphreys County,” Masters Thesis, Mississippi College, 2000; on repression of petitions see Bartley, Massive Resistance, 82, 180; Minor, Wilson F. “The Citizens’ Councils—An Incredible Decade of Defiance,“ (unpublished manuscript, MSU, Minor Collection, Box 2, Citizens’ Council folder), 14; Morris, Willie Yazoo: Integration in a Deep-Southern Town, (New York: Harpers, 1971), 17–18; Morris, Willie The Courting of Marcus Dupree, (Jackson: University Press of Missisippi, 1983), 88–89.Google Scholar

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11 This fund had originally been created to provide a legal defense for terrorist Byron de la Beckwith for the murder of Medgar Evers. T. A. Barrentine and J. T. Thomas, correspondence, undated, (Archives and Special Collections, J. D. Williams Library, University of Mississippi (UM) Race Relations Collection, Box 2, folder 15.Google Scholar

12 “Repeal it!—Official Council Statements on the ‘Civil Rights Act,'” The Citizen, 8 (July-Aug. 1964), 6–9; Hollis, “Never!,“ 26; Barnett, Ross R. “Why the South Will Win this Fight,“ The Citizen, 8 (July-Aug. 1964), 14.Google Scholar

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17 Carroll, Terry Doyle “Mississippi Private Education: An Historical, Descriptive, and Normative Study,“ (Ph.D. diss., University of Southern Mississippi, 1981), 113–125; Simmons, “Government Schools,” 2; Simmons, “The Citizens’ Councils and Private Education,” The Citizen, 10 (February 1965), 11; Synon, John J. “Why Not ‘Free Enterprise’ Schools?,“ The Citizen, 8 (October 1965), 18; Evans, “Council School No. 1.“Google Scholar

18 Carroll, “Mississippi Private Education,“ 133–134; “Citizens Councils—A Brief History,” The Citizen, 12 (Nov. 1968), 18; Simmons, interview by author; Minor, Wilson F. “Private School Grants Boosted,“ Times Picayune, 13 July 1968; Evans, “Council School No. 1—As New As Childhood,“ 11.Google Scholar

19 Simmons, William J. Interview by Orley B. Caudil, 1979, vol. 372, (Mississippi Oral History Program, University of Southern Mississippi (USM); Carroll, “Mississippi Private Education,“ 120–125.Google Scholar

20 Evans, “Council School No. 1.“Google Scholar

21 Lishman, Marvin Wayne “An Historical and Status Survey of the Member Schools of the Mississippi Private School Association from 1974–1989,“ (Ph.D. diss., University of Mississippi, 1989), 24–26; Sansing, James Allen “A Descriptive Study of Mississippi's Private, Segregated Elementary and Secondary Schools in 1971,“ (Ed.D. diss., Mississippi State University, 1971), 12, 49–71; Morphew, Richard D. “A Parent Compares Private and Public Schools,“ The Citizen, 10 (May 1966; Evans, “Council School No. 1.“Google Scholar

22 Evans, Medford “How to Start a Private School,“ The Citizen, 8 (September 1964, 6–19; Simmons, William J. “How to Organize a Private School,“ The Citizen, 14 (January 1970), 6; “Picture of Success,” The Citizen, 14 (April 1970), 12–13; Carroll, “Mississippi Private Education, “121.Google Scholar

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24 Carroll, “Mississippi Private Education,“ 5–6, 109, 113. Carroll indicates that his figures may underestimate the number of new schools in this period. Accurate figures are difficult to come by because private school founders tended to be very secretive due to fear of lawsuits. A number of schools deliberately kept no written records that might be subpoenaed in court. Nonetheless, Carroll's figures demonstrate a considerable gap between the number of schools receiving state charters and the number actually opening.Google Scholar

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33 “Private Schools, 1967–68,” Minor Collection, MSU.Google Scholar

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