In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional. Segregated schools didn't react right away, but segregationists did. Within months, the Citizens' Councils began to form in counties across Mississippi. And Byron de la Beckwith was one of the group's earliest and most enthusiastic members.

Sources & Further Reading:

Massengill, Reed (2024). Portrait of a racist: Byron De La Beckwith and the Assassination of Medgar Evers. Univ. of Tennessee Press.

Rolph, Stephanie (2018). Resisting Equality: The Citizens' Council, 1954-1989. Louisiana State University Press

Silver, James W (1963). Mississippi: The Closed Society. Harcourt Brace & World Inc.

Vollers, Maryanne (1995). Ghosts of Mississippi. Little Brown & Company.

Williams, Michael Vinson (2011). Medgar Evers: Mississippi Martyr. The University of Arkansas Press

Cook, James Graham (1962). The Segregationists. Appleton Century Crofts

McMillen, Neil (1971). The Citizens’ Council: Organized Resistance to the Second Reconstruction, 1954-1964. University of Illinois Press

Mendelsohn, Jack (1966). The Martyrs. Harper & Row

https://www.mississippifreepress.org/buried-truth-unresolved-disregarded-lamar-smith-murder-haunts-lincoln-county/

Cashion, S. A. (2013). "And So We Moved Quietly": Southern Methodist University and Desegregation, 1950-1970. Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Delao, Frank Delao, "Containing Communism in Texas: How the Right Interpreted the Cold War, 1945-1965" (2016).Open Access
Theses & Dissertations. 633

Rich, Evelyn (1988). "Ku Klux Klan Ideology, 1954-1988" Graduate Theses and Dissertations

https://supremecourthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Volume-37-Number-3-2012.pdf

https://usm.access.preservica.com/uncategorized/SO_eea548ac-a609-4b6f-be15-7ae300c2206b

https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2017/7/27/al-aqsa-one-encroachment-too-many