Upon leaving gubernatorial office, Wright opened a law practice in Jackson. [106] In 1952, he was selected to serve as Mississippi's national committeeman to the Democratic National Committee for a four-year term. [107] During the 1952 presidential election he supported the Democratic presidential ticket of Governor Adlai Stevenson II and Senator John Sparkman and stated that he would not support the Republican presidential ticket of General Dwight D. Eisenhower and Senator Richard Nixon. [108]
On October 2, 1954, Wright announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for governor and he selected Gordon Roach, an attorney who had served as Pike County attorney, as his campaign manager. [109] [110] On May 5, 1955, he formally launched his campaign at his home in Rolling Fork with around 3,500 people in attendance. [111] Hoping to build off of white discontent with the United States Supreme Court's 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling mandating desegregation in public schools, Wright framed himself as an ardent segregationist. He argued that his involvement in the Dixiecrat foray made him "the man most feared by Negro leaders who seek to integrate the schools" and pledged to use Mississippi's police power to prevent such integration. [112] Though the media reported his chances favorably, Wright placed third in the Democratic primary behind James P. Coleman and Paul B. Johnson Jr., surprising many observers [112] and preventing him from participating in the primary runoff. [113] He thereafter returned to practicing law [106] and Coleman went on to be elected governor. [112]
Death and legacy
On May 4, 1956, Wright suffered a heart attack and died forty minutes later at his home in Jackson, Mississippi. [114] Following his death, his son Fielding Wright Jr. was selected to succeed him as the president of the United Cerebral Palsy of Mississippi, Incorporated, a cerebral palsy humanitarian organization. [115] His funeral was held on May 6, and was attended by Senator Strom Thurmond, state senator R. M. Kennedy, Mississippi Governor James P. Coleman, Mississippi Lieutenant Governor Carroll Gartin, and Mississippi Secretary of State Heber Ladner. [114] Thurmond stated that his death was "a tremendous loss to the South and to the nation". [1] Most state newspaper obituaries focused on his participation in the 1948 Dixiecrat movement and his staunch segregationist pledges in the 1955 gubernatorial race. [116] He was buried at Kelly Cemetery in Rolling Fork. [106]
On November 17, 1960, a section of U.S. Route 61 inside Mississippi was designated as the Fielding L. Wright Memorial Highway. [117] An art center at the Delta State University and a science complex in the Mississippi Valley State University were named after him. [118]
In 1990, former Arkansas Governor Sid McMath stated that Wright and Thurmond's nominations were "a racist thing" as "they were against Truman because of his attitude toward race and fair employment and these other things that finally became a matter of course later on, this social legislation." [119] Historian James Patterson Smith wrote that Wright's association with the Dixiecrat movement "built the profoundly negative image that has long obscured his substantial achievements as a progressive legislator". [120] His personal papers were destroyed in a fire shortly after he left office, and he has generally been ignored in historiography or dismissed as a reactionary. [121]
Electoral history
Fielding L. Wright | |
|---|---|
 | |
| 49th and 50th Governor of Mississippi | |
| In office November 2, 1946 –January 22, 1952 |
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Fielding L. Wright | 155,265 | 58.83% | |
| Democratic | John Lumpkin | 108,661 | 41.17% | |
| Total votes | 263,926 | 100.00% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Fielding L. Wright (incumbent) | 202,014 | 55.31% | |
| Democratic | Paul B. Johnson Jr. | 112,123 | 30.70% | |
| Democratic | Jesse M. Byrd | 37,997 | 10.40% | |
| Democratic | Frank L. Jacobs | 8,750 | 2.40% | |
| Democratic | William L. Spinks | 4,344 | 1.19% | |
| Total votes | 365,228 | 100.00% | ||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | ±% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Fielding L. Wright (incumbent) | 166,095 | 97.59% | −2.41% | |
| Independent Republican | George L. Sheldon | 4,102 | 2.41% | +2.41% | |
| Total votes | 170,197 | 100.00% | |||
| Party | Candidate | Votes | % | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Paul B. Johnson Jr. | 122,483 | 28.07% | |
| Democratic | James P. Coleman | 104,140 | 23.87% | |
| Democratic | Fielding L. Wright | 94,460 | 21.65% | |
| Democratic | Ross Barnett | 92,785 | 21.27% | |
| Democratic | Mary D. Cain | 22,469 | 5.15% | |
| Total votes | 436,337 | 100.00% | ||
