American Veterans Committee

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The American Veterans Committee was founded in 1944, during World War II, as a liberal veterans organization and an alternative to groups such as the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which supported a conservative political and social agenda. With a motto of "Citizens First, Veterans Second," the AVC supported a range of liberal causes: for example, it challenged segregationist policy and maintained racially integrated chapters in Southern states before the era of civil rights.

Targeted in anti-communist campaigns of the Second Red Scare, it purged its Communist members in 1948 but nonetheless lost significant membership and energy as an organization. In significantly smaller form, it continued through 2007 to promote efforts, in the words of historian John Egerton, to "right social wrongs at home" by supporting a variety of liberal causes. The last two chapters closed in 2007. These were the Chicago area chapter led by Jerry Knight of Park Forest, IL and the Washington D.C. chapter.

Other prominent members included newscaster, actor, and television producer Shelby Storck (who served as chairman of the Kansas City, Missouri chapter of the committee in 1946), cartoonist Bill Mauldin, actor Burgess Meredith, CIA official Cord Meyer, Jr. and "LSD guru" Timothy Leary.