1956

In August 1956, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover formally launches the Counter Intelligence Program (COINTELPRO), initially targeting the Communist Party USA. By 1957-1960, the program has expanded to target Black civil rights organizations. Tactics include planting informants, sending forged letters to create conflicts between leaders, providing information to local police who carry out harassment arrests, contacting employers to have activists fired, and sending anonymous threatening letters. The program's exposure in 1971 reveals systematic government destruction of Black political organizing.

In January 1956, protected by double jeopardy after their acquittal, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam sell their confession to journalist William Bradford Huie for $4,000 each. The Look magazine article contains their detailed account of abducting, beating, and murdering Emmett Till. They describe Till's refusal to beg for mercy. The confession is read across America and internationally. Neither man faces any legal consequence. In 2017, historian Timothy Tyson reports that Carolyn Bryant admitted her claim that Till grabbed or threatened her was false.

In 1956, Alabama Attorney General John Patterson obtains a court order banning the NAACP from operating in Alabama on grounds that it has not registered as a foreign corporation. The ban, upheld for eight years until NAACP v. Alabama in 1964, effectively silences the organization in the state. Texas, Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina pass laws requiring membership lists to be disclosed — knowing that exposure would lead to economic retaliation and physical danger for members.

Following Brown v. Board of Education (1954), White Citizens Councils across the South fund and organize private 'segregation academies' to allow white students to exit public schools rather than integrate. Mississippi alone eventually has over 150 such academies receiving state vouchers for tuition. Public schools in some districts are defunded and closed. Many segregation academies survive today as private schools in the South, some retaining their founding exclusionary missions long after legal requirements to end it.

In 1956, Alabama Attorney General John Patterson obtains a court order banning the NAACP from operating in Alabama on grounds that it has not registered as a foreign corporation. The ban, upheld for eight years until NAACP v. Alabama in 1964, effectively silences the organization in the state. Texas, Virginia, Georgia, and South Carolina pass laws requiring membership lists to be disclosed — knowing that exposure would lead to economic retaliation and physical danger for members. The coordinated legal assault on the NAACP strips Black Southerners of their primary legal advocacy organization.

Following Brown v. Board of Education (1954), White Citizens Councils across the South fund and organize private 'segregation academies' to allow white students to exit public schools rather than integrate. Mississippi alone eventually has over 150 such academies receiving state vouchers for tuition. Public schools in some districts are defunded and closed. Many segregation academies survive today as private schools in the South.

On March 12, 1956, 101 U.S. senators and representatives from the South sign the 'Declaration of Constitutional Principles,' known as the Southern Manifesto, pledging to use 'all lawful means' to reverse Brown v. Board of Education. Signatories include 19 senators and 82 representatives. The document calls Brown 'a clear abuse of judicial power' and commends 'the motives of those states which have declared the intention to resist.' It provides political cover and encouragement for massive resistance to desegregation.

On March 29, 1956, Mississippi Governor James Coleman signs legislation creating the State Sovereignty Commission — a state spy agency with a budget to investigate, monitor, and sabotage civil rights organizations. The Commission pays informants in Black communities, provides information to the Klan, compiles dossiers on civil rights workers, and coordinates with the Citizens Council. It operates until 1977. Records sealed until 1998 reveal the Commission helped identify civil rights workers for violence, including possible involvement in the 1964 Mississippi Burning murders.

On November 13, 1956, the U.S. Supreme Court affirms in Browder v. Gayle that bus segregation in Montgomery is unconstitutional. The case is brought by Aurelia Browder, Claudette Colvin, Susie McDonald, and Mary Louise Smith — not Rosa Parks, whose case was handled differently. Claudette Colvin, 15, had refused to give up her seat nine months before Parks. The ruling formally ends the boycott with a Black victory, though bombings continue into January 1957.

The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission recruits and pays Black informants within civil rights organizations to report on activities, membership, and plans. Informants include members of local NAACP chapters, ministers, and community figures. Declassified records reveal that the Commission sometimes provided information about civil rights workers to white supremacist groups. The practice of Black informants reporting to a segregationist state apparatus creates an atmosphere of distrust that hampers organizing and sometimes leads directly to violence against civil rights workers.

In 1956, Pittsburgh's urban renewal authority demolishes the Lower Hill District — the heart of Black Pittsburgh's cultural life, home to jazz clubs, the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, churches, and 8,000 residents — to build the Civic Arena. Residents receive inadequate compensation and are scattered throughout the city. The arena is built without a single unit of replacement housing. The destruction is dramatized decades later by playwright August Wilson, who set his Pittsburgh Cycle plays in the Hill District.

On February 6, 1956, white students and outside agitators riot at the University of Alabama after Autherine Lucy becomes the first Black student admitted. Mobs throw eggs and rocks, screaming racial epithets. The university suspends Lucy 'for her own safety' and then permanently expels her on a pretext. The NAACP's legal case is dropped after her expulsion. Lucy is not readmitted until 1980 and finally graduates in 1992. The pattern of admitting Black students then expelling them amid white riots becomes a template across the South.

On April 10, 1956, Nat King Cole is performing at a segregated concert at Birmingham Municipal Auditorium — for an all-white audience — when members of the White Citizens Council rush the stage and attack him, knocking him to the ground. The attack is organized by Asa Carter of the North Alabama Citizens Council, who objects to 'Negro music' being played to white audiences. Cole is injured. Birmingham police arrest the attackers. The incident illustrates that no accommodation of segregationist demands could protect Black artists from racial violence.

After the Supreme Court orders Montgomery bus desegregation effective December 21, 1956, Klan and White Citizens Council members conduct a terror campaign: snipers shoot at buses, injuring a pregnant woman; homes and churches are bombed; Reverend Ralph Abernathy's church and home are bombed. Montgomery police stand by during bombings. Bus service is suspended multiple times. The violence is designed to make the cost of desegregation so high that Black residents will accept re-segregation.

After the Supreme Court orders Montgomery bus desegregation effective December 21, 1956, Klan and White Citizens Council members conduct a terror campaign: snipers shoot at buses, injuring a pregnant woman; homes and churches are bombed; Reverend Ralph Abernathy's church and home are bombed. Montgomery police stand by during bombings. Bus service is suspended multiple times. The violence continues into January 1957. The terror campaign is designed to make the cost of desegregation so high that Black residents will accept re-segregation.

In 1956, Ella Baker, Bayard Rustin, and Stanley Levison found 'In Friendship,' a New York-based organization that raises funds for Southern civil rights victims facing economic retaliation — people fired, evicted, or denied credit for registering to vote or supporting the Montgomery Boycott. The organization is an early example of Northern-Southern civil rights infrastructure and establishes relationships that lead to the founding of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in 1957. Ella Baker's organizing approach prioritizes grassroots leadership over charismatic individual leaders.

The Supreme Court affirms that bus segregation is unconstitutional, vindicating the boycott.