Council for United Civil Rights Leadership
| Abbreviation | CUCRL |
|---|---|
| Formation | June 1963 |
| Purpose | Civil rights |
| Headquarters | New York City |
| Location | |
|
Region served
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United States |
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.
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.
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. Historian David Garrow writes:
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.
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