Successor | Arkansas chapter of White Citizen's Council |
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Formation | February 1955 Pine Bluff, Arkansas, U.S. |
Dissolved | March 1956 |
Type | Hate group/Pro-segregation |
Purpose | Maintaining segregation and white supremacy in the state of Arkansas. |
Headquarters | Pine Bluff, Arkansas, U.S. |
President | L.D. Poynter |
Executive Secretary | Amis Gutheridge |
Spokesperson | Amis Gutheridge |
Affiliations | White Citizen's Council |
White America, Inc., was an organization founded in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, in February 1955. The organization was created following the desegregation of schools in Arkansas, to attempt to prevent "any attempts by Negroes to enter white schools" in the state.[1] The group joined two other militant white supremacist organizations in September 1955 to attempt to intimidate the local school board of Hoxie to reverse its decision to integrate its schools.
The group's intimidating actions were so severe that a federal judge said they amounted to terrorism and placed an injunction on the organization and its affiliates to prevent them from contacting or otherwise interfering with the school board. This was the first time in U.S. history that a federal court had placed such an injunction on white supremacist intimidation. The group was affiliated with the White Citizens' Councils that existed throughout the United States during the Civil Rights Movement, as well as other state and regional segregationist organizations.
A year after its formation, White America, Inc., merged with the official White Citizens' Council chapter in Little Rock.