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Senator James Eastland (D-MS)
James Eastland (1904–1986) was born in the Mississippi Delta. After pursuing studies at Vanderbilt University and the University of Mississippi, he began a law practice in 1927. From 1928 to 1932, he served in the State House of Representatives. In 1941 he was appointed to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat. Eastland won the special election in 1942 and spent the next thirty-six years in the Senate. An unrelenting opponent of civil rights, he voted against antilynching and poll tax bills, and the extension of the FEPC. After the Supreme Court's decision in Brown v. Board of Education, he joined forces with the White Citizens' Councils to fight integration. As chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, a post he held from 1956 to 1978, Eastland blocked civil rights legislation, claiming in 1966 to have defeated 127 such measures. |