In 1942, Bryant ran for the Florida House of Representatives and won. He resigned the seat to join the armed services during World War II, in which he served in the United States Navy as a gunnery and antisubmarine officer in the North Atlantic, Mediterranean, and Pacific. In 1946, he was again elected to his seat, and he served five consecutive terms until 1956. He was Speaker of the Florida House of Representatives in 1953. His uncle, Ion Farris, was also a former state House Speaker. In 1960, Bryant was elected governor and took the oath of office on January 3, 1961. Like most Florida politicians at the time, he was a segregationist. When running for governor in 1956 Bryant told a crowd: "I'm for segregation.... In the homes of Negroes we find different intellectual levels and moral and sanitary standards." White opposition to the first Civil Rights protests in Florida helped him win the election in 1960. Bryant's administration continued Collins's focus on education. He helped fund 28 junior colleges and additional state universities. He worked to get interstate and state highways built in Florida and to purchase public lands for future use by the state, saying that it was important to do it "before the need aroseor before it became critical." Bryant was also a major proponent of the Cross Florida Barge Canal. Like his predecessor and successor, he opposed the death penalty, but some executions took place during his administration, as the Florida governor had very limited power to commute sentences. Bryant left office on January 5, 1965. After his term as governor, Bryant headed to Washington, D.C., to serve on the National Security Council and in the White House Office of Emergency Planning. In 1970, back in Florida, he ran for the U.S. Senate seat vacated by the retiring Democrat Spessard L. Holland, but was defeated in the Democraticrunoff election by the more liberal and lesser-known state senatorLawton Chiles of Lakeland. Chiles went on to win the seat over the Republican nominee, U.S. Representative William C. Cramer of St. Petersburg. During the campaign, in which President Nixon came to Cramer's assistance, Chiles quipped that Cramer had expected to face Bryant: "I'm not anything Cramer thought he would be running against. So he's reduced to telling lies about me." Chiles served in the Senate from 1971 to 1989 and as governor from 1991 to 1998. Upon his defeat, Bryant returned to the practice of law in Jacksonville, where he lived until his death in 2002. Never a diehard segregationist, he eventually renounced his earlier positions and came out in support of civil rights. Bryant had become a multimillionaire due to his lucrative law practice and an insurance company he founded. His wife, Julia, died of cancer in 1996. Bryant was devastated by her death, saying that "to lose her was hell", and he died six years later. They are interred together in the Woodlawn Cemetery. In 2000, Bryant created the Farris and Julia Bryant Florida History Preservation Fund Endowment for the University of Florida Libraries to preserve Florida history and culture. Collections digitally and physically preserved include the Papers of C. Farris Bryant and the Florida History and Heritage Collections". The Age of the Mind'' is a 2013 documentary film about Bryant's policies and their lasting impact on Florida. Focusing on his years as governor, the documentary highlights many contentious episodes during his administration, including the St. Augustine Civil Rights protests, the construction of the Florida Turnpike and Florida Barge Canal, and the Cuban refugee crisis that resulted from the failed Bay of Pigs invasion.
