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FROM WHITE SUPREMACISTS TO “SEGREGATIONISTS” 3 In late March 1944,Theodore Bilbo traveled home with a warning for his fellow Mississippians.With the “joy and happiness of the prodigal son returning to loved ones and the old homestead,” the senator stood before a joint session of the state legislature. After reflecting on his long and stormy tenure in state politics, the former governor assured the packed gallery and a radio audience of ultimate victory over the Axis. Triumphant forecasting gave way to foreboding, however, as the senator turned his attention to race. “I wish to discuss with you this grave race problem fully and frankly,” Bilbo announced. “In the interest of our Nation , our Southland and our own State of Mississippi,” he continued, “I shall be forced to make startling revelations to you. Such action I have decided is absolutely necessary at this time.”1 By early 1944, what Bilbo had to say would have shocked few white Mississippians . He had battled anti-lynching and anti–poll tax legislation with unmatched fervor and had denounced the FEPC and attempts to open Democratic primaries to black voters. His constituents had every reason to expect a white supremacist harangue, but Bilbo spokewith a heightened sense of urgency. “We in the Southland,” he announced, “being fully aware of the attempts to break down segregation and implant social equality of the races throughout the Nation are ready to do some plain talking.” The senator reminded the packed galleryand the radio audience of their sacred duty to maintain racial integrity and defend white civilization. “We people of the South must draw the color line tighter and tighter,” Bilbo declared, “and any white man or woman who dares to cross that color line should be permanently and forever ostracized.”2 As the war abroad wound down, Jim Crow’s defenders rallied to the barricades. Convinced that assaults on the white primary and the poll tax served the ultimate goal of breaking down segregation, southern racial 68 | From White Supremacists to “Segregationists” conservatives increasingly focused their energy on defending and justifying its continued existence. As a self-identified “segregationist” conceded in 1945, “Southern people are not so much concerned with the Negro’s voting per se—they are concerned with the results of that voting.” Faced with a wartime civil rights campaign that called the question on segregation, southern racial conservatives mobilized explicitly in its defense. As the nation transitioned from war to peace, affirmations of segregation overtook calls for white supremacyas the battle cryof southern racial conservatives. The rise and demise of Washington’s most notorious racist proceeded apacewith this uneven transition.Theodore Bilbo earned his well-deserved reputation as a southern demagogue and a Capitol Hill pariah. Yet as Jim Crow faced unprecedented threats duringWorld War II, the political mainstream in the South shifted toward Bilbo’s hard-line stance. At the same time, Jim Crow’s most militant defenders recognized that egalitarian war rhetoric and black political pressure had transformed the national landscape . Even Bilbo realized that World War II rendered “white supremacy” insufficient and imprecise as a rallying cry for white southerners. While “Bilboism” became an umbrella epithet for crude bigotry and violent repression , the Mississippi senator also fought desegregation in the nation’s capital, penned a segregationist manifesto, and attracted allies who had previously shunned him.3 Bilbo’s strange career reveals that even Jim Crow’s most diehard defenders recognized that segregation demanded a multifaceted defense. As they mobilized to redeem the color line as a social necessity and a fundamentally American institution, Bilbo and his allies broadened their critique of wartime egalitarianism. Bilbo’s Mississippi legislature speech marked no significant departures in his racial thinking. What had changed, he believed, was his newfound authority. Bilbo addressed his constituents, he proudly announced, as the new “mayor ex-officio” of Washington, due to his recent appointment to the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on the District of Columbia. If his new title sounded impressive, Bilbo’s promotion was hardly a coup. The death of Indiana senator FrederickVan Nuys opened up a more attractive committee assignment for District Committee chairman and Nevada Democrat Pat McCarran. By virtue of seniority, Bilbo assumed chairmanship of the least prestigious standing committee in Congress. The Mississippi senator headed a congressional institution long regarded, in the words of one Washington journalist, as “a proving ground for junior members or a dumping ground for embarrassing ones.” But in the hands of the [3.145.60.166] Project MUSE (2024...

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