John E. Rankin

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John E. Rankin

John Elliott Rankin (* 29. March 1882 in Bolanda , Itawamba County , Mississippi ; † 26. November 1960 in Tupelo , Mississippi) was an American politician of the Democratic Party .

Life

Rankin was elected to the US House of Representatives for the first time in 1920 for the first congressional constituency of Mississippi and was then a member of Congress from March 4, 1921 to January 3, 1953 (67th to 82nd Congress) in uninterrupted succession. As chairman of the Committee on World War Veterans 'Legislation (72nd to 79th Congress) and the Committee on Veterans' Affairs (81st and 82nd Congress), he sat down with Edith Nourse Rogers ( Rep. / Rep. / Massachusetts / Chair of the Committee during the 80th and 83rd Congresses) for the improvement of the social situation of veterans in the US armed forces - including the G. I. Bill of Rights . Together with George W. Norris (Senator / Rep. / Nebraska ), Rankin was one of the main initiators of the 1933 law that established the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA).

It was then mainly due to Rankin's commitment that the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) was not dissolved - as intended - in 1945, but turned into a permanent committee. Rankin's participation as a distinguished member of the HUAC made the committee one of the main instruments with which the hysterical persecutions of the so-called McCarthy era were carried out.

Early years

Rankin was born on March 29, 1882 near Bolanda, Itawamba County, Mississippi, to Thomas Braxton Rankin and his wife Modest (née Rutledge). After high school, he studied law at the University of Mississippi , Oxford . He graduated in 1910, was admitted to the bar, and opened a law firm in West Point , Clay County , Mississippi. In the same year he moved to Tupelo , where he again opened a law firm. From 1911 to 1915 he served as a district attorney in Lee County , also wrote articles for newspapers. When the United States entered World War I, Rankin enlisted in the US armed forces. After returning from the war, he married Annie Laurie Burrous on October 1, 1919.

Congressman

In 1920 Rankin was elected to the US House of Representatives in the 1st constituency of Mississippi as a member of the Democratic Party (67th Congress). He was re-elected a total of 15 times and belonged to Congress from March 4, 1921 to January 3, 1953 (67th to 82nd Congress) in uninterrupted succession.

Election victories excluding African American voters

Rankin's continued electoral successes are to be seen against the background of the electoral conditions prevailing in the southern states of the USA at the time. After the end of the civil war, African Americans - now free citizens - were guaranteed their constitutional rights through several amendments to the American constitution. The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution (of 1865) abolished slavery , the 14th (of 1868) extended civil rights protection to all races, and the 15th (of 1870) granted them the right to vote. In contrast, the white Americans who had predominated in the southern states up to that point strove to exclude the previous slaves, who in many cases locally formed the majority in these states, from the elections and thus also from government offices in order to open up " white supremacy " (the "superiority of the white race" ) in this way as well as through numerous other laws called " Jim Crow " laws. In the 1890s, various clauses on the electoral process were inserted into the constitutions of the individual southern states of the USA, the systematic application of which excluded African Americans from elections in practice.

"Poll Tax" (election tax), the " Literacy test " (education test ), the "Grandfather Clause" (grandfather rights), then the so-called "White Primaries" ("white pre-elections") were the main means used, the white one To keep the minority in power politically. If this was not enough, other ways were used to keep African Americans out of the ballot boxes, e.g. B. through economic pressure, for example, when farm tenants were threatened to have to, should they exercise their right to vote, leave their farms, employees and teachers were given the prospect of dismissal. Last but not least, sheer violence was also used.

Poll Tax

The “poll tax” required every citizen to pay an election tax for exercising his right to vote. However, since the average income of African Americans at that time was far below that of white Americans (only around 40%), this poll tax was usually an insurmountable obstacle for black voters.

Literacy test

The “literacy test” often became an insurmountable hurdle for African-American voters and already excluded around 60 percent of black voters - most of the former slaves who could not read and write - from the elections. Most of the time, the clerk - who was all white - presented them with a complicated passage of the Mississippi Constitution to read and explain. In addition, they had to answer a whole catalog of questions "to the full satisfaction of the registrar" . The white registrars always found some reason to claim that the voter had given inadequate answers. In many cases no reason was given.

" White Primaries "

At the turn of the century, almost all political offices in Mississippi were held by representatives of the Democratic Party . The Republican Party played such an unimportant role in Mississippi (as in the other southern states ), and the Democratic Party was so dominant that the election decision was already made by the primaries of this party, the subsequent final election campaign was only a matter of form. Exclusion from the primaries was therefore equivalent to exclusion from the entire election process. In 1902, the Mississippi government passed legislation defining political parties as "private" organizations. The Democratic Party was then a purely "private event" , no longer affected by the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and excluded African Americans from their primaries. Only after the Supreme Court, in its decision of April 3, 1944 ( Smith v. Allwright ) (321 US 649) , had classified the regulation of the "White Primaries" as clearly unconstitutional, since due to the weight / importance of the primaries, Even these pre-elections would have to be seen as an integral part of the (entire) election process and for this reason black Americans should not be excluded from this if it was only possible for African Americans to participate in elections.

The proportion of African-Americans in Mississippi's population is currently approx. 36% (highest proportion of all states). The participation of black Americans in the Mississippi elections increased after the decision of the Supreme Court, but a real turnaround did not come about until the Voting Rights Act was passed in 1965, according to an investigation by the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division Voting Section shows ( "Voter Registration Rates - 1965 vs. 1988" ). While in March 1965 no more than 6.5% of all African-American voters in Mississippi had registered, the proportion grew to 74.2% by 1988.

These framework conditions put Rankin's election victories in a different perspective. As early as 1948, Albert E. Kahn commented on Rankin's electoral successes in “Treason in Congress” with the following words:

"Since 1920, Rankin has been consistently elected to office by approximately 4 per cent of the electorate of his Congressional District, in which American citizens who are Negroes are deprived of the right to vote. Widespread illiteracy, extreme poverty and the poll tax are other factors that have helped keep Rankin in Congress. "

( "Since 1920, Rankin has been consistently elected to office by about 4 percent of the electorate in his congressional district. Widespread illiteracy, extreme poverty, the polling tax [poll tax] are other factors that have helped Rankin stay in Congress." )

Withdrawal from politics

In 1952, Mississippi lost a congressional electoral district due to the 1950 census and the decline in population it noted. The 1st and 4th constituencies were then merged and the two MPs elected in the two constituencies - John Rankin and Thomas Gerstle Abernethy  - competed against each other in a “winner-take-all” election . The election was won by Abernethy, also a member of the Democratic Party, and Rankin then withdrew from politics.

His grave is in Greenwood Cemetery in West Point, Mississippi.

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