by Maarten Zwiers
PhD dissertation, University of Groningen, the Netherlands
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During the civil rights era in the United States, the South was often considered a country of intransigent racism,... more
During the civil rights era in the United States, the South was often considered a country of intransigent racism, gothic politics and hooded terrorism. Mississippi in particular was singled out as “the South’s South,” a state where a totalitarian system of white supremacy reigned supreme. Its political establishment, represented by James O. Eastland in the U.S. Senate, accentuated the state’s devotion to segregation in its rhetoric and actions.
Undoubtedly, this image of the Magnolia State and of its political representatives was not solely based on myth. White on black violence reached unimaginable proportions in Mississippi during the 1960s. The state’s leadership did very little to stop this aggression and oftentimes even encouraged it. And white Mississippians offered stiff resistance to the attempts of the federal government to implement civil rights legislation.
This image, however, tells only part of the story about the reality of Mississippi politics. When the theory of interposition and the organizing principle of white massive resistance proved to be impracticable, southern politicians and their constituents had to find methods to accommodate to new social relations without losing too much of the old ways.
My research focuses on this particular subject, and how it developed on the federal and state level. Through the study of the career of James Eastland, I will investigate how this politician responded to the failure of massive resistance, how he adjusted his segregationist views to new realities, and how he used his position of power to defend the white southern way of life.
Eastland operated within the framework of the Democratic Party, which started to lose its status as the party of the South when it embraced a liberal ideology of racial equality. His close relationship with politicians such as John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson complicated his image as defender of the Old South even further. Yet he understood that his political influence in Washington was largely based on his connections with the administration and on his membership of the Democratic Party. As such, the story of James Eastland is a story of conflict and compromise with the federal government, the Democrats, and the agenda of the civil rights movement.
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