James Eastland

James Eastland

James Oliver Eastland (born November 28, 1904 in Doddsville , Sunflower County , Mississippi , †  February 19, 1986 ibid) was an American politician of the Democratic Party . From June 30, 1941 to September 28, 1941 and from January 3, 1943 to his retirement from politics on December 27, 1978, he was one of the two US Senators of the state of Mississippi.

Early years

James Eastland was in Doddsville as the son of a lawyer and 1904 cotton - planter born (1944 †) and his wife Alma Woods C. Eastland. It was named after his father's brother, James Eastland, who was murdered in 1904. A year after he was born, his family moved to Forest , Scott County . Here James Eastland attended Forest High School . After graduating from school, he studied law : first from 1922 to 1924 at the University of Mississippi in Oxford, then from 1925 to 1926 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville ( Tennessee ) and finally from 1926 to 1927 at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa . He was admitted to the bar in 1927 and then began practicing in Forest.

Political career

Mississippi State Representative to the House of Representatives

1928, just 24 years old, Eastland was a candidate of the Democratic Party to the Mississippi House of Representatives ( State House of Representatives voted). Along with Courtney C. Pace and Kelly J. Hammond, Eastland was a key supporter of the then governor of Mississippi, Theodore G. Bilbo . Bilbo, staunch advocates of white supremacy ( "superiority of the white race" ) and for his racist rhetoric notorious championed in later years, after he was elected US senator, resistant the idea of the entire black population of the United States back to Africa ( Liberia ) to be deported:

"It is essential to the perpetuation of our Anglo-Saxon civilization that white supremacy be maintained, and to maintain our civilization there is only one solution, and that is either by segregation within the United States, or by deportation of the entire Negro race to its native heath, Africa. "

( "It is vital to the survival of our Anglo-Saxon civilization that the supremacy of the white race is maintained, and to maintain our civilization there is only one solution, and that is either racial segregation within the United States or deportation of the whole black race to their original area of ​​origin, to Africa. " ) ( Cong. Rec., 75th Cong., 3rd Sess., 881 )

When Bilbo's term as governor expired in 1932, Eastland initially withdrew from politics and did not run for re-election to the state parliament. In 1932 he married the doctor's daughter Elizabeth Coleman (see below "Private") and opened a law firm in Ruleville , a few kilometers from his birthplace in Doddsville. At the same time he began (at the request of his father) to cultivate his parents' cotton plantation. In the following years he modernized the farm and enlarged it from the original 2300 acres to around 6000 acres (around 24 km²). Even after he later returned to politics, he always saw himself first and foremost as a plantation owner, which was also reflected in his political views.

senator

When Pat Harrison , one of Mississippi's two Senators, died on June 22, 1941, before the end of his term in office, the Governor of Mississippi, Paul B. Johnson , instructed the young James Eastland to hold the vacant post until new (early) elections . (Johnson had initially asked James Eastland's father to fill out the vacancy, but he refused.) So from June 30 to September 28, 1941, Eastland became Senator from Mississippi for a full 88 days. Eastland used the few weeks, however, to prevent a price ceiling planned by the US government for cottonseed oil , which earned him great sympathy among cotton producers in the southern states . Eastland itself boasted that by preventing price restrictions, it dumped $ 50 million in cotton producers' pockets. In the early senatorial election Eastman did not run - not to do so, he had had to promise when he took over the Senate seat - and so Wall Doxey was elected Senator until the regular elections in 1942 . However, Eastland won the following regular election in 1942 against the incumbent Doxey, although he was massively supported by President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Theodore G. Bilbo. In the next Senate election in 1948, Eastland was re-elected unopposed. In 1954, 1960, 1966 and 1972 he was re-elected and was one of the two Senators of the State of Mississippi for the entire period from January 3, 1943 until he left politics on December 27, 1978.

Eastland and the desegregation

In 1954, the next Senate election was due, but Eastland initially did not intend to run again. He was already publicly considering withdrawing from politics entirely, but ultimately decided differently and had to contest the election campaign against Lieutenant Governor Carroll Gartin . Just before Eastland began campaigning for his re-election, the Supreme Court made a landmark decision regarding racial segregation in US public schools. With the judgment in the Brown v. Board of Education , of Topeka , Kansas , on May 17, 1954, racial segregation in public schools was abolished. After a class action lawsuit brought by parents in the state of Kansas against the then still mandatory racial segregation at state (public) elementary schools, the Supreme Court's ruling overturned this segregation throughout the United States, as it was a violation of the principle of equality, as stated in the 14th Amendment was given, represent. This landmark decision of principle marked the end of legally sanctioned racial segregation in state schools in the United States. A year later, on May 31, 1955, the Supreme Court also decided that the desegregation of public schools must be carried out “with all deliberate speed” ( “in a reasonable hurry” ). Another year later, on May 5, 1956, the Supreme Court extended the prohibition of racial segregation to schools and universities that were subsidized with public funds.

Eastland used this decision to catch votes. By attacking the verdict again and again and demanding that it be annulled, he could be sure of the vote of Mississippi's white voters, cementing his name as a defender of racial segregation and white supremacy . He defamed the court decisions as illegal, saw them as tyranny and saw it as a Christian duty to resist this judgment: "Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God" ( " Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God " ). Eastland was a Methodist member . In a speech given shortly after the court decision by Brown v. Board of Education held before the Senate, he made his views on racial segregation clear:

“The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination ... Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire. "

( "The traditional Southern institution regarding racial segregation was the perfectly correct, self-evident truth that emerged from the chaos and confusion of the time of the Reconstruction . Racial segregation is the foundation of racial harmony. Segregation allows everyone to do so. Races to pursue their [own] interests, to develop their own culture, racial segregation is by no means discrimination ... Mr President, it is a law of nature, it has been given by God that every race has the right and also the duty to reproduce . All free people can claim for themselves the right to assemble exclusively with members of their own race, if they so wish - and unmolested by measures of the government .... " )

In a speech given on August 12, 1955 in Senatobia , Mississippi, he said:

“On May 17, 1954, the Constitution of the United States was destroyed because of the Supreme Court's decision. You are not obliged to obey the decisions of any court which are plainly fraudulent [based on] sociological considerations. "

( "On May 17, 1954, the United States Constitution was destroyed by the decision of the Supreme Court. No one is obliged to accept decisions of any court that are underhandedly based solely on sociological considerations." )

During this time he became one of the most popular speakers at the White Citizens Councils ( WCC ) meetings . On July 11, 1954 - less than a month after the above Fundamental decision of the Supreme Court - the first group of white Americans under the leadership of Robert Patterson had come together in Indianola , Sunflower County - just a few miles south of Eastland's hometown of Doddsville. In other municipalities Mississippi quickly followed by others Council start-ups, and within a few months, this movement spread in all southern states - the so-called Deep South - out. An overarching association was formed: the Citizens' Council of America ( CCA ). The members of these councils were mostly respected, above all influential, white citizens of the respective communities - plantation owners, bankers, merchants, doctors, lawyers, civil servants, members of the churches and teachers - who had set themselves the goal of enforcing the decision of the Supreme Court to prevent by all means. In contrast to the members of the Ku Klux Klan , who were consistently violent, the WCC members rejected - at least in their official statements - the use of brute force. The ideology and strategic goals of the WCC, however, were largely identical to those of the Klan. The difference was “only” in the tactical approach: “more subtle” measures were taken against the supposed opponent: blacks, civil rights activists and other supporters of racial equality were strangled with “economic measures”: they were forced out of their professions or prevented from doing so Because of the membership structure and the “finer” approach, the WCC were also called “the uptown Ku Klux Klan” ( “Ku Klux Klan of the Upper Town” , or more freely translated: “a Ku Klux Klan for the better circles ” ).

Eastland denied all his life to have ever been a member of the White Citizens Council . But through his numerous appearances and speeches at the meetings, he was the one who gave the WCC a voice and kept pounding his listeners:

"There is nothing in the US Constitution or the amendments there too, that gives to Congress, the President or the Supreme Court the right or power to declare that white and colored children must attend the same schools."

( "There is nothing in the United States Constitution and its amendments that gives Congress , the President, or the Supreme Court the right or power to declare that white and colored children should go to the same school." )

Signatory of the "Southern Manifesto"

1956 Eastland was one of the 96 signatories of the so-called " Southern Manifesto " ( "Manifesto of the Southern States" of March 12, 1956). A total of 96 politicians (19 senators and 77 members of the House of Representatives ) from Alabama , Arkansas , Florida , Georgia , Louisiana , Mississippi , North Carolina , South Carolina , Tennessee , Texas and Virginia attempted the above-mentioned decisions of the US Supreme with this “ manifesto ” Levering courts again. Eastland and the other signatories of the "Southern Manifesto" could not accept this development.

McCarthy's followers

James Eastland with US President Lyndon B. Johnson

1953 Eastland was elected chairman of the Judiciary Committee's Internal Security Subcommittee ( Sub-Committee on Homeland Security of the Senate Judiciary Committee appointed) (SISS). Eastland's predecessor in that office had been Senator Pat McCarran . McCarran was a key initiator of the Internal Security Act (also known as the McCarran Act) of 1950 and the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 (also known as the McCarran-Walter Act). As a result of these laws, several sub-committees of Congress began to review the past and private lives of government officials and persons from other walks of life for loyalty or suspected / alleged espionage activities. The Internal Security Subcommitte formed in 1950 was one of them. McCarran was its very first chairman (and so this sub-committee was also known as the McCarran committee). Due to the changes in the foreign policy landscape in the early phase of the so-called Cold War and the associated domestic political changes in the USA, above all due to the increasing influence of Joseph McCarthy , this subcommittee of the Senate experienced a continuous expansion of its field of activity.

McCarthy had as chairman of the Senate Committee on Government Operations already (GOC), the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations ( Permanent Under-committee of the Senate investigations instrumentalized) for his baiting. Subsequently, in unison with Eastland, he also exerted his influence on the sub-committee of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and so this too developed into a kind of Senate version of the Committee on Un-American Activities ( House Committee on Un-American Activities ) of the House of Representatives. As a result, u. a. the finances of the Department of State and Defense, allegedly communist-colored decisions of the Supreme Court , US foreign policy in Asia, radio and television stations, large parts of the entertainment industry, newspapers (such as the New York Times), youth groups, trade unions, educational organizations, the defense industry , Civil rights groups, student organizations - after all, all suspected Soviet actions anywhere within the United States. In almost all cases, the allegations were made up by the hair and made unfounded. Hardly a staunch communist was discovered, but numerous investigated people lost jobs and incomes. Because even a completely innocent person was stigmatized by the dishonorable circumstances of the investigation.

In 1956, Eastland was able to significantly increase his influence again when he became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee . This committee controlled around 60 percent of all laws passed by the Senate; Above all, he was able to - as an "ex officio member" - influence all sub-committees.

In his capacity as chairman of the SISS, Eastland et al. a. summon some New York Times journalists to its committee. The NYT had in numerous cover stories demanded that Mississippi (also) the Supreme Court decision in the Brown v. Board of Education and must take measures to ensure racial equality. In an article published January 5, 1956, the NYT wrote:

“Our faith is strong that long after Senator Eastland and his present subcommittee are gone, long after segregation has lost its final battle in the South, long after all that was known as McCarthyism is a dim, unwelcome memory, long after the last Congressional committee has learned that it cannot tamper successfully with a free press, The New York Times will be speaking for (those) who make it, and only for (those) who make it, and speaking, without fear or favor, the truth as it sees it. "

“We strongly believe that long after Senator Eastland and his current subcommittee were a thing of the past, long after racial segregation in the southern states lost its final battle, long after all of what was called McCarthy -Era is known, is just a faint, unwanted memory, long after even the last congressional committee realized that it is utterly futile to mess with the free press that the NYT will (still) speak for those who make up this newspaper and only for those who make up this newspaper. And she will - fearlessly and objectively - (continue to) speak the truth. "

Private

James Eastland married the doctor's daughter Elizabeth Coleman in 1932. The marriage had four children, a son and three daughters.

Web links

Commons : James Eastland  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

• James Eastland in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• Sen. James Eastland. In: Time , March 26, 1956 (English, cover story).
• James O. Eastland Collection of the Library of the University of Mississippi (english)