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James Oliver Eastland was an American attorney, plantation owner, and politician from Mississippi. A Democrat, he served in the United States Senate in 1941 and again from 1943 until his resignation on December 27, 1978. Eastland was a segregationist who led the Southern resistance against racial integration during the civil rights movement, often speaking of African Americans as "an inferior race." Eastland has been called the "Voice of the White South" and the "Godfather of Mississippi Politics."
The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission was a state agency in Mississippi active from 1956 to 1977 and tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism. It was overseen by the Governor of Mississippi. The stated objective of the commission was to "[...] protect the sovereignty of the state of Mississippi, and her sister states" from "encroachment thereon by the Federal Government". It coordinated activities to portray the state and racial segregation in a more positive light. Serving governors and lieutenant governors of Mississippi were ex officio members of the commission. The Sovereignty Commission spied on and conspired against civil rights activists and organized pressure and economic retaliation against those who supported the civil rights movement in Mississippi.
Clyde Kennard was an American Korean War veteran and civil rights leader from Hattiesburg, Mississippi. In the 1950s, he attempted several times to enroll at the all-white Mississippi Southern College to complete his undergraduate degree started at the University of Chicago. Although the United States Supreme Court had ruled in 1954 that segregation of public schools was unconstitutional, the college rejected him. Kennard was among the thousands of local activists in the 1940s and 1950s who pressed for their rights.
Percy Greene (1897–1977) was an American newspaper editor, and journalist. Greene created the Jackson Advocate, Mississippi's first and oldest black-owned newspaper. In the 1940s and 1950s, Greene had been a staunch civil rights activist; but by the 1960s, Green supported segregation. He worked for the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a state agency tasked with fighting desegregation and controlling civil rights activism.
Jack Minnis (1926-2005) was an American activist, and the founder and director of opposition research for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in the Civil Rights Movement era. Minnis researched federal expenditures and state and local subversion of racial equality. Minnis was white, but remained affiliated with SNCC even after it adopted a "blacks only" personnel policy, its only white employee for a long time. He helped to train such workers as Stokely Carmichael, Marion Barry, and John Lewis.
Walter Sillers Jr. was an American lawyer, politician, landowner, and white supremacist. A legislative leader from Mississippi, he served as the 56th Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives. An outspoken white nationalist, Sillers has been referred to as one of the most racist political leaders in Mississippi's history. He was one of the wealthiest people to have ever served in the Mississippi legislature. He served on the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state agency established to combat integration and civil rights organizing.
Randolph T. Blackwell was an American activist of the Civil Rights Movement, serving in Martin Luther King Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference, amongst other organizations. Coretta Scott King described him as an "unsung giant" of nonviolent social change.
Horace Hammerton Harned Jr. was an American politician in the state of Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and Mississippi State Senate. A Democrat, he was one of seven legislators who sat on the segregationist Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission in the 1960s. He served in the Senate from 1952 to 1956, and in the House from 1960 to 1980.
DeVan "Van" Dallas was an American politician in the state of Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1964 to 1976. Dallas was an automobile and farm equipment dealer. He attended Troy Grammar School and Pontotoc High School. Dallas served in the United States Navy from 1944 to 1946, partaking in World War II. From 1972 to 1976, he sat on the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, among other various boards.
Eatonville is a small unincorporated community in Forrest County, Mississippi, United States, north of Hattiesburg, Mississippi. It is home to North Forrest High School.
Herman Brister DeCell (1924–1986) was a lawyer and politician in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi Senate from 1959 to 1979.
The Message from Mississippi is a state-sponsored 1960 segregationist propaganda film produced by the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission, a state government agency established to promote and defend segregation in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education U.S. Supreme Court decision desegregating public schools. In the film, Mississippi governor Ross Barnett says that Blacks in Mississippi preferred the state's segregated way of life.
The Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission was a government agency of the Louisiana state government established to combat desegregation, which operated from June 1960 to 1967 in the capitol city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The group warned of "creeping federalism", and opposed school racial integration. It allied with the Louisiana Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities, and coordinated with the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission.
The Alabama State Sovereignty Commission was a government agency established in the U.S. state of Alabama to combat desegregation, which operated from 1963 to 1973. The agency doubled as an intelligence network, and kept files on civil rights activists.
Hugh Allen Boren was an assistant to Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett, a state legislator, and an investigator for the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission. In 1944 he served in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Erle Ennis Johnston Jr. was an American public official, newspaperman, author, and mayor in Mississippi. He was campaign associate for Ross Barnett and wrote a biography of the segregationist governor. In 1960, Barnett appointed him public relations director of the pro-segregation Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Johnston became its executive director and continued to hold the public relations duties. He held the position under Governor Paul B. Johnson Jr. before resigning in 1968. He worked at The Scott County Times newspaper, before buying it. Johnston was mayor of Forest, Mississippi, from 1981 to 1985.
Henry Jay Kirksey Sr. was a state legislator and civil rights leader in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi Senate. He was born on the outskirts of Tupelo, Mississippi. He advocated and protested for the release of Mississippi Sovereignty Commission records. He also advocated for the Confederate battle flag to be removed from the upper left corner of the Mississippi's state flag.
Earl Evans Jr. was an American Democratic politician and public official in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi Senate including as President Pro Tempore. He served in the Mississippi Senate in the 1940s and 1950s. He had been a special agent with the FBI. He lived in Canton, Mississippi and represented Madison County, Mississippi. He was also a businessman and farmer. He married.
Maurice L. Malone was a lawyer, automobile dealer, state legislator in Mississippi and served as director of the Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission, a segregationist state agency that targeted civil rights activists, produced propaganda materials, and schemed to undermine the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Brown v. Board of Education. He represented George County. He lived in Lucedale. He served as president of Perkinston Junior College's board of trustees. He succeeded Ney Gore as director of the Sovereignty Commission. He ran for re-election as a state representative.
Jesse E. Stockstill was a lawyer, city attorney, and state legislator in Mississippi. He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives and the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission.
References
- ↑ "MS Digital Archives". MS Digital Archives.
- ↑ "Gore, Ney M. - Civil Rights Digital Library". crdl.usg.edu.
- ↑ Mississippi (September 18, 1976). "Acts Passed at the ... Session of the ... General Assembly of the State of Mississippi" – via Google Books.
- ↑ State, Mississippi Secretary of (September 18, 1968). "Mississippi Official and Statistical Register". Secretary of State. – via Google Books.
- ↑ "MS Digital Archives".
- ↑ Irons, Jenny (May 14, 2010). Reconstituting Whiteness: The Mississippi State Sovereignty Commission. Vanderbilt University Press. ISBN 978-0-8265-1687-9 – via Google Books.
- ↑ "Obituaries in Memphis, TN | the Commercial Appeal".
