With about 60,000 members across the United States,[3] in the South, the groups were founded primarily to oppose racial integration of public schools following the US Supreme Court ruling in 1954 that segregated public schools were unconstitutional. They also opposed voter registration efforts in the South, where most blacks had been disenfranchised since the turn of the 20th century, and integration of public facilities during the 1950s and 1960s. <u>Members used intimidation tactics including economic boycotts, firing people from jobs, propaganda, and threatening and committing violence against civil-rights activists.</u>
