Council for United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL) was an umbrella group formed in June 1963 to organize and regulate the Civil Rights Movement. The Council brought leaders of Black civil rights organizations together with white donors in business and philanthropy. It successfully arranged the August 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom with the Kennedy administration.
The Council encompassed groups with different strategies and agendas, from the radical Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to the conservative National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). By centralizing donations, the formation of the group muted disagreements over fundraising and membership. It worked to oppose tactics like civil disobedience and boycotts by controlling distribution of funds and by virtue of connections to the media establishment. Conflict nevertheless overcame the group quickly, and its money and power declined gradually until dissolution in January 1967.
Formation
Preparatory work for the Council began when Stephen Currier, President of the Taconic Foundation, asked to meet with Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. of SCLC in February 1963."Council for United Civil Rights Leadership: Where Are Negro Donors In $1,500,000 Campaign?", New Pittsburgh Courier, 27 July 1963, p. 3.
With national attention on the Birmingham campaign, King became even more valuable as a high-profile fundraiser. Conflict intensified among movement leaders, particularly between King and NAACP chief Roy Wilkins.Sitkoff, King (2008), p. 111. "After Birmingham, there was so much more to compete for, and more reasons to win at any cost. The pool of prospective members, of bodies to be utilized in demonstrations, and of committed activists willing to do whatever was required bloomed like a thousand flowers. [...] Birmingham swung open the door to huge financial contributions, alliances with labor and corporate leaders, and public endorsements and assistance from the nation's civic groups. Accordingly, each of the major black protest organizations tried to outdo the others and respond to the surges from the local struggles." Historian David Garrow writes:Garrow, Bearing the Cross (1986), pp. 269–270.
To a number of close observers, Wilkins' anger and the growing appearance of interorganizational competition were rooted basically in the heightened financial stakes that had resulted from the Birmingham crisis. That event had elevated King to the indisputable civil rights top spot in the American public's mind. It also meant that King's SCLC, rather than the long-established NAACP, would be the chief financial beneficiary of the new interest in civil rights.
On 19 June 1963, representatives from 96 corporations and foundations met for a fundraising breakfast at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan. $800,000 was raised. Donations came from the Ford Foundation and Rockefeller Foundation, and 93 other businesses and foundations in addition to the Taconic Foundation. Few or none of these were Black-owned.
Garrow continues:Garrow, Bearing the Cross (1986), p. 270.
At the Currier-sponsored breakfast the next morning, the Taconic Foundation's president recommended that the black leadership establish the Council for United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL) which, under Currier's auspices, would serve as a clearinghouse for dividing large contributions among all the organizations. Everyone present knew of Currier's great personal wealth, as well as his remarkable ability to generate funds from other well-to-do friends. No one dissented from his plan. The arrangement could lessen the growing internecine conflict before serious damage was done, and it was all but certain to provide each of the organizations with funds they otherwise would not receive.
The Council announced itself on 2 July 1963 after a meeting of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights. It told the New York Times that it was seeking $1,500,000 in "emergency" funds—and that it had already raised $800,000. The funds would be used, said the group, "to employ additional field staff to work in areas of greatest tension, to provide additional attorneys to handle the mounting number of court cases arising from mass arrests, and to strengthen the staffing of the seven organizations."
Organization
The organizations involved were:Dickerson, Militant Mediator (2004), p. 177–178. The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), led by Martin Luther King Jr. and other ministers The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), a legal advocacy group led by Roy Wilkins The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF)—a group which split from the NAACP in 1957—under Director-Counsel Jack Greenberg The National Urban League, a community organizing group led by Whitney Young The National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), led by Dorothy Height The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), led by James Forman and soon also John Lewis The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), directed by James Farmer and advised by Bayard Rustin
(According to Forman, SNCC was not initially included in the Council. He writes: The insistence at first that SNCC be excluded from the council revealed a dislike that was never overcome. But the growing importance of SNCC in the field of human and civil rights made it impossible for those leaders to ignore its existence. Forman's first Council meeting took place at the Carlyle Hotel after the March on Washington.)Forman, Making of Black Revolutionaries (1972), pp. 365–366, 370.
Soon after its formation, the Council announced that it would be led by co-chairs Whitney Young and Stephen Currier.Peter Kihss, "Race Sit-In Begins at Mayor's Office in a Job Protest", New York Times 10 July 1963; . Outsiders attended meetings only by invitation, and leaders were not allowed to send delegates.Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart (1985), p. 215. "At the first meeting of the elite sextet, we decided to call ourselves the Council on United Civil Rights Leadership (CUCRL); to meet regularly, monthly if possible; to limit participation to the heads of those six civil rights organizations; and to have a rotating chairmanship. Others could attend only by invitation. The sending of surrogates was not to be permitted; the leaders had to attend for themselves."
For public relations, the Council employed producer Victor Weingarten.Dave Hepburn, "In The Wings", New York Amsterdam News, 4 April 1964, p. 14; . Also involved from the White fund-raising world were tax lawyer Mel Dewitt and Jane Lee J. Eddy, director of the Taconic Foundation.Forman, Making of Black Revolutionaries (1972), p. 365.
The Council formed a tax-exempt account called the Welfare, Education, and Legal Defense (WELD) Fund."Rights Groups Join in a Common Fund", New York Times, 17 July 1963; . The fund was managed by civil rights lawyer Wiley A Branton."Branton To Coordinate Rights Committee Work", Atlanta Daily World, 21 August 1963, p. 1; WELD received additional money ($50,000) from the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
In its first disbursement of funds, the Council allocated $125,000 to the NAACP, $125,000 to the Urban League, $100,000 for the NAACP LDF, $100,000 to CORE, $50,000 to the SCLC, $50,000 for the NCNW Educational Foundation, and $15,000 for SNCC."Joint Negro Council Allocates $565,000 to Rights Groups", New York Times, 18 July 1963; .
Conflict within the Council
SNCC, one of the more radical groups, was dissatisfied to receive the smallest amount, but stayed in the coalition. Promising access to large amounts of money allowed the CUCRL to regulate SNCC, CORE, and the SCLC—considered the more radical groups within the Council. Historian Charles W. Eagles writes:Eagles, The Civil Rights Movement in America (2012), pp. 63–64.
... it is essential to appreciate the admixture of motives that lay behind the mid-1963 creation of CUCRL: first, a firm desire on the part of wealthy white movement supporters such as the Taconic Foundation President Stephen R. Currier to stabilize if not eliminate the increasing visible and hostile competition between civil rights groups for contributors' dollars; second, a wish to moderate the southern movement's increasingly aggressive and demanding tone by giving NAACP chief Wilkins and National Urban League head Whitney Young, a good friend of Currier's a regular and intimate forum for propounding their views to the more direct action-oriented leaders of SNCC, CORE, and SCLC; and, third, an intent to exert some control over SNCC's angriest inclinations by centralizing at least a part of movement fundraising and using the resulting allocation process as a carrot-and-stick inducement for SNCC to follow a "responsible" course.
Later accounts from participants also described the Council as competitive and harsh. Forman (of SNCC) wrote that the group felt like a jungle of civil rights hyenas, each distrustful of the other, each with personal grievances against the other, each agreeing to curb some of his hostility so that he could get just a little more money for programs with which everyone else probably disagreed.Forman, Making of Black Revolutionaries (1972), p. 366.
James Farmer of CORE wrote:Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart (1985), p. 215.
The United in CUCRL's name was more a posture than a reality. These were no joint chiefs of staff poring over maps to determine where and when the final assault was to be launched and by which branch of the forces. There was, instead, a jockeying for position to determine who would be first to march victoriously into the nations' heartland, and for whom the flags would be waved and the bugles sounded.
Farmer reports a dialogue between Wilkins and King:Farmer, Lay Bare the Heart (1985), p. 216.
Wilkins: One of these days, Martin, some bright reporter is going to take a good hard look at Montgomery and discover that despite all the hoopla, your boycott didn't desegregate a single city bus. (This was to help the sgregation of law) It was the quiet NAACP-type legal action that did it. King: We're fully aware of that, Roy. And we in the SCLC believe that it's going to have to be a partnership between nonviolent direct action and legal action if we're going to get the job done. Wilkins: In fact, Martin, if you have desegregated anything by your efforts, kindly enlighten me. King: Well, I guess about the only thing I've desegregated so far is a few human hearts. Wilkins (nodding): Yes, I'm sure you have done that, and that's important. So keep on doing it; I'm sure it will help the cause in the long run.
March on Washington
The announcement of the new group coincided with endorsements of the Kennedy Civil Rights Act (eventually the Civil Rights Act of 1964) and with public planning for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom."Aug. 28 Date For March on Washington", Los Angeles Sentinel, 11 July 1963; On 22 June 1963 (three days after the first Carlyle Hotel meeting) Currier, Young, Wilkins, King, Randolph, Farmer met at the White House with President John F. Kennedy, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.VanSertima, Great Black Leaders (1988), p. 44. "Three days later, Currier, along with King, Randolph, Wilkins, Young, and James Farmer of CORE, attended the crucial White House meeting at which the general objectives of the March on Washington were agreed upon. King now argued that, rather than being ill-timed and counterproductive, the march was the best means of 'dramatizing the issues and mobilizing support in parts of the country which don't know the problem at first hand.' Vice-President Lyndon Johnson and Attorney General Kennedy concurred." The meeting proceeded smoothly, and the CUCRL leaders agreed with the Kennedy administration that the main focus of the March would be support for new legislation."JFK, A. Philip Randolph and the March on Washington", 9–12 lessons, White House Historical Association.