| In the 1950s and 1960s, U.S. Senator James O. Eastland of Mississippi became one of the most well-known representatives of southern massive resistance to racial integration. New York Senator Herbert Lehman described him as "a symbol of racism in America," and the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of New York accused Eastland of "subversion just as real and, because it comes from a U.S. Senator, far more dangerous than any perpetrated by the Communist Party." [1] Linking the Warren Court and the civil rights movement with communism, Eastland effectively blocked dozens of bills designed to end segregation in the South. During those days, the senator was known by different names; in Washington, people referred to him as "The Chairman," a nickname that characterized the immense power he wielded over his Judiciary Committee. Others referred to him as Big Jim" or the "Godfather of Mississippi politics," the head of a statewide network that could make or break upstart politicians, distribute patronage, and guard the southern way of life. Eastland was not a great orator in the southern demagogic tradition of James Vardaman, Theodore Bilbo, or his ally George Wallace. Instead, he preferred to work silently behind the scenes, securing profitable legislation for plantation owners, destroying the reputation of civil rights supporters, and keeping Americans fearful of a global Communist conspiracy. "Senator Eastland understood power and its proper application better than anybody I ve ever been around," his former administrative assistant Bill Simpson said. "The senator understood what it was and how to use it properly and in the right degree. He never pounded a table, never screamed or hollered. He just got the job the done." [2] In my Southern Studies M.A. thesis, titled "The Paradox of Power: James O. Eastland and the Democratic Party," I have begun to explore the contradiction existing between the reactionary extremism of southern segregationists on the one hand, and their oftentimes pragmatic approach to political issues on the other. Like his fellow politicians from the South, Eastland was a Democrat when he entered Congress in 1941. The Democratic Party had been the bastion of white supremacy in the southern states since the end of Reconstruction, but this situation began to change during the New Deal. With President Franklin Roosevelt at the helm, the Democrats became the political organization of federal intervention in economic affairs. At the same time, the party became more receptive to the demands of African American voters, whose protest against southern segregation grew stronger, particularly during and after World War II. When the Democrats adopted a strong civil rights plank in 1948, party members from the Deep South bolted the National Convention and formed their own political movement, based on the philosophy of states rights and the maintenance of segregation in the former Confederacy. Although not many prominent southern Democrats joined these so-called Dixiecrats, U.S. Senator James Eastland and his fellow senator from Mississippi, John Stennis, left the party of their fathers and became active in the States Rights Democratic Party. The founders of the Dixiecrat movement had high hopes for the 1948 campaign, but their effort ended in failure. With the backing of only four Deep South states, the States Rights Party was unable to influence the outcome of the presidential race and prevent the election of Harry Truman to the White House. Many Dixiecrats returned to the Democratic Party after the 1948 election, including James Eastland and John Stennis. They were not punished severely for their defection, and soon their power in Congress and the Democratic Party began to rise. In 1949, Eastland became chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Civil Rights, and four years later he assumed the chairmanship of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee (SISS). The senator reached the pinnacle of his political sway in 1956, when he gained control of the entire Judiciary Committee. In his new position, Eastland set the agenda on important issues reaching from constitutional amendments to civil rights. But his growing clout also created new problems. Ironically, his rise to power tied him more solidly to the national Democratic Party. This would become the great paradox of his political life. The senator s authority in Washington was based on his allegiance to the Democrats, but his southern constituents became increasingly more dissatisfied with the party of Harry Truman and his successors, especially during the 1960s. In my dissertation, I want to build on my M.A. thesis and examine how this paradox affected the politics of James Eastland. When the third party effort of the Dixiecrats proved futile in 1948, Senator Eastland chose to accommodate his conservative southern ideology within the Democratic Party. Moreover, during his time in the Senate, Eastland developed a good working relationship with John F. Kennedy and later Ted Kennedy and he was on good terms with Senate Majority Leader and later President Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas. This kind of associations became particularly troublesome for Eastland, who was after all one of the figureheads of massive resistance to integration and an avid spokesman for reactionary organizations like the Dixiecrat Party and the Citizens Councils. As a matter of fact, during the 1960s, when the GOP was gaining ground in the South, Eastland s Republican opponents attacked him on the fact that he worked together with Kennedy and Johnson. Calling him a "Double-Standard Democrat" who went "down the line for Lyndon," GOP candidate Prentiss Walker attempted to unseat Eastland in 1966. Walker failed miserably, however, which attested to the political strength of Eastland on his home turf, in spite of the senator s partisan affiliation with the liberal architects of the New Frontier and the Great Society. |
