James K. Vardaman
Vardaman in 1910
United States Senator
from Mississippi
In office
March 4, 1913 – March 4, 1919
Preceded byLeRoy Percy
Succeeded byByron P. Harrison
36th Governor of Mississippi
In office
January 19, 1904 – January 21, 1908
LieutenantJohn Prentiss Carter
Preceded byAndrew H. Longino
Succeeded byEdmond Favor Noel
Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives
In office
1894–1896
Preceded byHugh McQueen Street
Succeeded byJames F. McCool
Member of the Mississippi House of Representatives
from the Leflore County district
In office
January 1890 – January 1896
Personal details
Born
James Kimble Vardaman

(1861-07-26)July 26, 1861
Jackson County, Texas
DiedJune 25, 1930(1930-06-25) (aged 68)
Birmingham, Alabama
Resting placeLakewood Memorial Park, Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
SpouseAnna Burleson Robinson
Nickname"The Great White Chief"
Military service
Allegiance United States of America
Branch/service United States Army
Rank Major
Battles/warsSpanish–American War

James Kimble Vardaman (July 26, 1861 – June 25, 1930) was an American politician from the U.S. state of Mississippi. A Democrat, he served as the Governor of Mississippi from 1904 to 1908 and then represented Mississippi in the United States Senate from 1913 to 1919.

Known as "The Great White Chief", Vardaman had gained electoral support for his advocacy of populism and white supremacy, saying: "If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy."[1] Aligning with left-wing populists and favoring progressive reforms in railing against banks, railroads, and tariffs,[2] he appealed to the poorer whites, yeomen farmers, and factory workers. Vardaman's tenure as Governor of Mississippi was marked by his advocacy of regulating corporations, enacting child labor laws, segregating streetcars, ending educational opportunities for African-Americans, and defending lynching.[3] After completing his term as governor, he defeated Democratic incumbent LeRoy Percy, a member of the planter elite, in the primary for the 1912 U.S. Senate election,[4] and was then elected unopposed in the general election.[5]

Early life and education

Vardaman was born in July 1861 in Jackson County, Texas, while it was under the control of the Confederate States of America, a fact he often remembered.[6] He moved to Mississippi, where he studied law and passed the bar. He settled in Greenwood, Mississippi, becoming editor of The Greenwood Commonwealth.[7]

Political career

Vardaman with James Thomas Heflin and Ollie Murray James in 1912.

Early political career

As a Democrat, Vardaman served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1890 to 1896 and was elected as its speaker in 1894.[8][9] He was known for his populist appeal to the everyday person. State Democrats took action to ensure that they did not lose power again. After having gained control of the legislature by suppressing the black vote, they passed a new constitution in 1890 with provisions, such as a poll tax[10]: 471  and literacy test,[11] that raised barriers to voter registration and disenfranchised most blacks.[12]

Referring to the 1890 Mississippi state constitution, Vardaman said:

There is no use to equivocate or lie about the matter.... Mississippi's constitutional convention of 1890 was held for no other purpose than to eliminate the nigger from politics. Not the 'ignorant and vicious', as some of the apologists would have you believe, but the nigger.... Let the world know it just as it is.... In Mississippi we have in our constitution legislated against the racial peculiarities of the Negro.... When that device fails, we will resort to something else.[13]

Vardaman was commissioned as a major in the U.S. Army during the Spanish–American War and served in Puerto Rico.[14]

Governor of Mississippi

Vardaman ran twice in Democratic primaries for governor, in 1895 and 1899, but was unsuccessful. The state was virtually one-party, and winning the Democratic primary was tantamount to victory in the general election for any office. In 1903 Vardaman won the primary and the general elections for governor, serving one four-year term (1904–1908). In the election, he said that "a vote for Vardaman is a vote for white supremacy, a vote for the quelling of the arrogant spirit that has been aroused in the blacks by Roosevelt and his henchmen, ...a vote for the safety of the home and the protection of our women and children."[15]

In late December 1906, he went to Scooba, in rural Kemper County, with the Mississippi National Guard, to ensure that control was established. Whites had rioted against blacks there and in Wahalak and feared retaliation; in total, two white men were killed and 13 blacks. The events were covered by the Associated Press and the New York Times, among other newspapers.[16][17]

By 1910, his political coalition of chiefly poor white farmers and industrial workers began to identify proudly as "rednecks." They began to wear red neckerchiefs to political rallies and picnics.[18] Vardaman advocated a policy of state-sponsored racism against blacks and said that he supported lynching to maintain white supremacy.[1] From 1877 to 1950, Mississippi had the highest number of lynchings in the nation.[19] He was known as the "Great White Chief."[20]

U.S. Senate

Vardaman during his time as a U.S. senator

Vardaman was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1912 in the first popular election of the state's senators by defeating the incumbent LeRoy Percy, a member of the planter elite, in the Democratic primary.[4] He ran on a platform of repealing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendment, which gave blacks the vote and other rights. He was unopposed in the general election. Vardaman served one term, from 1913 until 1919. He voted against the U.S. declaration of war on Germany and the entry into World War I, only five other senators voted with him.[21] He was defeated in his primary re-election bid in 1918.[22]

Vardaman ran in the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in 1922 but was defeated in the primary runoff by U.S. Representative Hubert Stephens by 9,000 votes.[23]

Rhetoric

Vardaman was known for his provocative speeches and quotes and once called Theodore Roosevelt a "little, mean, coon-flavored miscegenationist."[24] About the education of black children, he remarked, "The only effect of Negro education is to spoil a good field hand and make an insolent cook."[25] "The knowledge of books does not seem to produce any good substantial result with the Negro, but serves to sharpen his cunning, breeds hopes that cannot be fulfilled, creates an inclination to avoid labor, promotes indolence, and in turn leads to crime."[26]: 105 

After the president of Tuskegee University, Booker T. Washington, had dined with Roosevelt, Vardaman said that the White House was "so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable."[27] Regarding Washington's role in politics, Vardaman said: "I am opposed to the nigger's voting, it matters not what his advertised moral and mental qualifications may be. I am just as much opposed to Booker Washington, with all his Anglo-Saxon reenforcement, voting, as I am to voting by the coconut-headed, chocolate-colored typical little coon, Andy Dotson, who blacks my shoes every morning. Neither one is fit to perform the supreme functions of citizenship."[28][29]

Personal life, death, and legacy

Vardaman Hall at the University of Mississippi

Vardaman married Anna Burleson Robinson. Their son, James K. Vardaman, Jr., later was appointed as a governor of the Federal Reserve System, serving from 1946 to 1958.[30] Vardaman died on June 25, 1930, at the age of 68, at Birmingham Hospital in Birmingham, Alabama.[31]

The town of Vardaman, Mississippi is named after him. There is also a Vardaman Hall at the University of Mississippi, which has borne his name since it was built in 1929. In July 2017, the University of Mississippi announced that Vardaman's name would be removed from the building, but it still has not been removed as of September 2023.[32][33][34]

In William Faulkner's novel As I Lay Dying, a character in the Bundren family is named after the governor, presumably because the Bundrens are a family of poor, rural whites, one of Governor Vardaman's key constituencies. And in Faulkner's another novel Flags in the Dust, Gov. Vardaman was mentioned twice; both characters who mention him express admiration for his moral views and politics.[35]

References

  1. 1 2 Public Broadcasting Service (September 2008). "People & Events: James K. Vardaman". American Experience. Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Archived from the original on March 20, 2012. Retrieved September 21, 2008. If it is necessary every Negro in the state will be lynched; it will be done to maintain white supremacy.
  2. ↑ Mullins, Philip. "Ancestors Of George & Hazel Mullins: Chapter 14 - The Revolt of the Rednecks". Half Empty. Archived from the original on September 25, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  3. ↑ "Vardaman, James K." Mississippi Encyclopedia. Archived from the original on November 21, 2021. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  4. 1 2 Rowland, Dunbar (1904). The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi, 1912. Nashville, Tennessee: Press of Brandon Printing Company. pp. 124–125. Archived from the original on September 8, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  5. ↑ "United States Senators Chosen, 1912". The Tribune Almanac and Political Register 1913. New York: The Tribune Association. 1913. p. 457. Archived from the original on April 12, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023 – via Hathi Trust Digital Library.
  6. ↑ "VARDAMAN, James Kimble (1861-1930)". Biographical Directory of the U.S. Congress. Archived from the original on November 25, 2020. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  7. ↑ "James Vardaman". National Governors Association. January 10, 2012. Archived from the original on March 16, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  8. ↑ "1890 HOUSE". Mississippi State University Libraries. Archived from the original on September 28, 2022. Retrieved September 12, 2023.
  9. ↑ "1894 HOUSE". Mississippi State University Libraries. Archived from the original on September 13, 2023. Retrieved September 12, 2023.
  10. ↑ Williams, Frank B. Jr. (November 1952). "The Poll Tax as a Suffrage Requirement in the South, 1870-1901". The Journal of Southern History. Athens, Georgia: Southern Historical Association. 18 (4): 469–496. doi:10.2307/2955220. ISSN 0022-4642. JSTOR 2955220. Archived from the original on February 15, 2023. Retrieved October 28, 2020.
  11. ↑ "Nov. 1, 1890: Mississippi Constitution". Zinn Education Project. Archived from the original on August 20, 2023. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  12. ↑ Monnet, Julien C. (1912). "The Latest Phase of Negro Disfranchisement". Harvard Law Review. 26 (1): 42–63. doi:10.2307/1324271. JSTOR 1324271. Archived from the original on February 6, 2023. Retrieved September 11, 2023.
  13. ↑ McMillen, Neil R. (1989). "The Politics of the Disfranchised". Dark Journey: Black Mississippians in the Age of Jim Crow. University of Illinois Press. pp. 41–44. ISBN 978-0252061561. Archived from the original on September 8, 2023. Retrieved August 1, 2015.
  14. ↑ "Spanish-American War". A Sense of Place. Archived from the original on December 6, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  15. ↑ Blow, Charles M. (May 27, 2020). "How White Women Use Themselves as Instruments of Terror". New York Times. Archived from the original on May 28, 2020. Retrieved May 29, 2020.
  16. ↑ "Whites in Race War Kill Blacks Blindly". New York Times. Archived from the original on December 2, 2015. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  17. ↑ "Situation in Scooba Is Now Under Full Control". The Pensacola Journal. Archived from the original on May 18, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  18. ↑ Kirwan, Albert D. (1951). Revolt of the Rednecks: Mississippi Politics 1876–1925. University of Kentucky Press. p. 212. OCLC 3371463.
  19. ↑ "Lynching in America: Confronting the Legacy of Racial Terror". Equal Justice Initiative. Archived from the original on March 20, 2017. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  20. ↑ Mullins, Philip. "The Revolt of the Rednecks". The Ancestors Of George & Hazel Mullins. University of Texas at Austin. Archived from the original on February 12, 2012. Retrieved September 21, 2008.
  21. ↑ "TO PASS S.J. RES. 1,(40 STAT-1)M DECKARUBG WAR ON GERMANY … -- Senate Vote #2 -- Apr 4, 1917". GovTrack. Archived from the original on November 26, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  22. ↑ Rowland, Dunbar (1904). The Official and statistical register of the state of Mississippi. p. 345. Archived from the original on September 10, 2023. Retrieved September 10, 2023.
  23. ↑ "Our Campaigns - MS US Senate - D Runoff Race - Sep 05, 1922". Archived from the original on August 3, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  24. ↑ "Theodore Roosevelt and Civil Rights". Theodore Roosevelt Association. Archived from the original on December 19, 2008. Retrieved September 21, 2008.
  25. ↑ Wilkerson, Isabel (September 7, 2010). The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration. Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. p. 40. ISBN 978-0-679-60407-5. Archived from the original on September 8, 2023. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  26. ↑ "The Earliest Black Graduates of the Nation's Highest-Ranked Liberal Arts Colleges". Journal of Blacks in Higher Education (38): 104–109. 2002. doi:10.2307/3134222. JSTOR 3134222.
  27. ↑ Wickham, DeWayne (February 14, 2002). "Book fails to strip meaning of 'N' word". USA Today. Archived from the original on January 6, 2012. Retrieved September 1, 2017. It is as noxious today as in 1901 when Mississippi Sen. James Vardaman said after Booker T. Washington had dined with President Theodore Roosevelt that the White House was "so saturated with the odor of the nigger that the rats have taken refuge in the stable."
  28. ↑ "The Authentic Voice". Time. March 26, 1956. Archived from the original on March 11, 2010.
  29. ↑ Morrell, Edward DeVeaux. "Negro suffrage : should the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments be repealed?". Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. Archived from the original on November 8, 2022. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  30. ↑ "James K. Vardaman, Jr.: Governor (Board of Governors): 1946 - 1958". Archived from the original on April 4, 2015. Retrieved April 3, 2015.
  31. ↑ "J. K. Vardaman, Ex-senator, Dies. Mississippian Succumbs to Long Illness in a Birmingham Hospital. Was a governor. One of Six Senators Who Voted Against War With Germany. Lawyer and Editor". New York Times. June 26, 1930. Archived from the original on July 23, 2018. Retrieved March 23, 2010. James Kimball Vardaman, former Governor of Mississippi and a United States Senator from that State, familiarly known to thousands as 'the White Chief,' died at a hospital here today after a lengthy illness. His age was 68.
  32. ↑ "University of Mississippi to post sign recognizing slave labor on campus". CBS News. July 6, 2017. Archived from the original on November 5, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2018.
  33. ↑ Lawton, Jack (March 7, 2017). "Vardaman Hall Name Change Recommended By Committee For Contextualization". HottyToddy. Archived from the original on March 13, 2017. Retrieved September 8, 2023.
  34. ↑ "SASI Calls to Remove Names Ingrained in White Supremacy from Campus Buildings". HottyToddy. October 24, 2019. Archived from the original on August 19, 2020. Retrieved April 11, 2022.
  35. ↑ "James Vardaman". The Digital Yoknapatawpha Project. Archived from the original on March 29, 2023. Retrieved September 11, 2023.

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