Activists (and Rain) Drown out White Supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens in Jackson

Anti-racist activists have reported to Media Mouse that the white supremacist Council of Conservative Citizens, a racist group with origins in the segregationist White Citizens’ Councils of the south and active recently in Grand Rapids, were effectively disrupted in Jackson, Michigan by the combined presence of a large number of anti-racists and rain. The Michigan Council of Conservative Citizens scheduled the first of two rallies it plans in the state in order to build support for the passage of the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) yesterday in Jackson. Anti-racist activists report that they showed up shortly before 2:00pm to the Council’s “Anti-Affirmative Action Rally” to find that the fifteen anti-racists essentially matched the small crowd of Council of Conservative Citizens members and their supporters and the group was consequently easily able to halt the scheduled proceedings of the rally. While there were plans to have speeches followed by a march through Jackson, the activists—holding banners and signs reading “NO MCRI,” “No Nazis, No KKK, No Fascist USA,” and “CCC is a White Supremacist Organization”—were able to use noise and chanting to interfere with the Council’s rally and effectively limited their ability to both spread their racist message or attempt to recruit additional members.

While much of the rally consisted of activists calling out Council of Conservative Citizens’ members and supporters for their racist agenda and arguing between the two groups, there were a few noteworthy items gleaned from the stories related to Media Mouse. John Raterink of Hastings, the leader of the Michigan chapter of the Council of Conservative Citizens, confirmed that he has previously supported the neo-Nazi National Alliance by subscribing to their newspaper. While Raterink claimed that he “has no use” for “Klansmen or Nazis,” this statement is at odds both with his support of the National Alliance as well as the attendance of a known neo-Nazi at yesterday’s rally. There was one politician who showed up to give a speech at the rally—Charles “Chuck” Conces, a candidate for Michigan Attorney General with the Constitution Party of Michigan (United States Tax Payers Party)—who said that he was asked to speak by the Council of Conservative Citizens and claimed that he was unaware that they were a white supremacist organization. Despite being told that they were and given information confirming this fact, Conces said the he still hoped that the Council would endorse him in the upcoming election. While Conces denied being a racist and claimed to be unfamiliar with the Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI) despite both being invited to speak at the a rally in support of the MCRI and being a candidate for attorney general, the Constitution Party’s platform makes it clear that it is of the far right with opposition to taxes, a desire to make the United States a “Christian” country, advocacy of an “English Only” policy, and an opposition to immigration from Mexico. Of course, Conces has little chance of winning for a variety of reasons ranging from his platform to the difficulty of obtaining media coverage for candidates outside of the Democrat and Republican parties, but the presence of a political candidate at the rally is illustrative of the longstanding connections that the Council of Conservative Citizens has maintained with politicians over the years, with Senators Trent Lott and Bob Barr speaking to the organization (among others) in the past.

The Council of Conservative Citizens (CofCC) was formed in 1985 and is an outgrowth of the racist White Citizens’ Council (WCC) movement that organized to oppose desegregation in the 1950s and 1960s. The White Citizens’ Councils attracted nearly one million members by eschewing the overt racism of the Ku Klux Klan and relying on connections to powerful individuals such as bankers, newspaper editors, and politicians to organize in defense of segregation. Nationally, the Council of Conservative Citizens is led by Gordon Lee Baum (a former White Citizen’s Council organizer) and is based in St. Louis. The CofCC has built its membership in part from old mailing lists from the White Citizen’s Councils and by appealing to conservatives through organizing around contentious issues such as affirmative action, immigration, and gun control. Like the White Citizen’s Councils, it maintains a host of racist and white supremacist views with the Council of Conservative Citizens’ its “statement of principles” including the belief that “the American people and government should remain European in their composition and character,” a vehement opposition to immigration from “non-European and non-Western peoples” as it “threatens to transform our nation into a non-European majority in our lifetime,” and an opposition to “all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to promote non-white races over the European-American people through so-called ‘affirmative action’ and similar measures, to destroy or denigrate the European-American heritage, including the heritage of the Southern people, and to force the integration of the races.” The group’s statement of principles also includes opposition to “multiculturalist” or “Afrocentric” curricula in schools and an opposition to homosexuality, which they describe as a “perversion.”

The Michigan Council of Conservative Citizens appears to be a relatively new white supremacist organization in the state, with John Raterink registering the domain for their website – micofcc.org – and yesterday’s anti-affirmative action rally being their second public event. The group previously held a private July 4 picnic in 2005 in Nashville, Michigan and an anti-immigration rally in Grand Rapids in May of 2006. Based on attendance at the two public events and the number of anti-racist activists compared with the number of Council of Conservative Citizens members, it would seem that the group has little constituency in the state of Michigan, despite the Raterink’s organizing efforts. Indeed, while Raterink works closely with the national office of the Council of Conservative Citizens, speaking at the 2006 National Convention on the topic of “Keeping Christ in the Family” and hosting their “Citizen’s Supply Shop” that sells Council of Conservative Citizens’ merchandise, his organizing within the state seems to have made little progress.

Related Posts:

1. Videos from Protest against Michigan Council of Conservative Citizens
2. Chuck Conces for Attorney General
3. Racist Group Holds Anti-Immigration Demonstration
4. Racist Groups Organize Support of Anti-Affirmative Action Michigan Civil Rights Initiative (MCRI)

Tags: council of conservative citizens, jackson, michigan, nazis, protest, racism, racists