John Bell Williams was an American Democratic politician who served as Governor of his native Mississippi from 1968 to 1972, after defeating numerous candidates. He had a history of supporting racial segregation but complied with a federal court order to finally desegregate Mississippi's public schools. He was first elected to Congress in 1946, from Mississippi's 7th congressional district. He was the youngest man to be elected U.S. Representative from Mississippi. In what was then a one-party state due to disenfranchisement of African Americans, he was re-elected repeatedly to Congress through the 1966 election, even as the congressional districts were redefined.
In November 1946, Williams was elected at the age of 27 to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat from the 7th congressional district. He was the youngest U.S. Representative to have been elected from Mississippi. Williams advocated states' rights and segregation. He joined his state’s delegation in a walkout of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He supported Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrat presidential campaign, whose primary platform was racial segregation. Thurmond easily carried the electoral vote in Mississippi and three other Deep South states. After the Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Board of Education ruling on May 17, 1954, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools, Williams made a speech on the House floor branding the day 'Black Monday', and subsequently signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto. Williams supported the Democratic Stevenson-Sparkman campaign in 1952, but he favored unpledged Democratic electors in 1956 and 1960. In 1964, Williams endorsed RepublicanBarry Goldwater in the general election against incumbent president Lyndon B. Johnson and helped raise funds for Goldwater in Mississippi. Because of his activities for Goldwater, the Democratic caucus stripped Williams and a colleague, Albert W. Watson of South Carolina, of their House seniority. Williams remained a Democrat and retained his seat in 1966. Watson soon became a Republican.
Governor
In 1967, Williams ran for governor. The field of candidates was large, including former Governor Ross Barnett and two future governors, William Winter and Bill Waller. In the primary campaign, Williams claimed that, during the 1962 desegregation of the University of Mississippi, former Governor Ross Barnett made a secret deal with the Kennedys over the admission of James Meredith, while publicly claiming to do everything to maintain college segregation. In the first round of balloting, Williams finished second to the moderate candidate, William Winter. In the runoff, Williams defeated Winter by 61,000 votes. In the general election, Williams handily defeated Democrat-turned-Republican Rubel Phillips, in his second unsuccessful campaign for governor. Phillips’ running mate for lieutenant governor in 1963, Stanford Morse, a member of the Mississippi State Senate from Gulfport from 1956 to 1964, endorsed Williams in the 1967 race. During the campaign, Williams joked that when the returns were tabulated, the Republicans “won’t be able to find a Rubel in the rubble.” During Williams’ term as governor, Mississippi was ordered to desegregate its public school system by a federal court, as it had made little progress since the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed such public schools unconstitutional. A case had been brought by civil rights activists and some desegregation of schools had happened at local levels. Williams did not defy the court. In December 1978, 24 years after Brown v. Board of Education, Mississippi legislature officially removed from its state constitution the mandate that schools be segregated.
Williams died in Rankin County on March 25, 1983, being found dead in his apartment the following day; the cause was ruled to be a heart attack. He was buried on March 28, 1983 and his funeral was held in the first Baptist Church in Jackson the following day.
