Earl Buford Ellington (June 27, 1907– April 3, 1972), a native of Mississippi, was the 42nd Governor of Tennessee from 1959 to 1963 and again from 1967 until 1971.
Ellington owned a farm in Verona, Tennessee, in Marshall County, near Lewisburg, the county seat. He first came to statewide prominence as a campaign manager for his predecessor, Frank G. Clement, and as a member of his cabinet.
Ellington was perceived as less progressive than Clement and more in tune with other Southern governors of the time, and at first seemed to be a moderate segregationist. He was not, however, a staunch opponent of desegregation in the mode of Mississippi's Ross Barnett or Alabama's George Wallace, and did not use or threaten confrontational tactics as they did. His view moderated further and he eventually went on the record as favoring racial integration.
Ellington was a heavy favorite to succeed Clement in the 1958 Democratic primary, when Clement was unable to succeed himself due to term limit legislation which had been amended into the Tennessee state constitution. Ellington won the election of 1958, defeating Judge Andrew Tip Taylor by a mere 8700 votes. (Albert Gore, Sr. won renomination for the United States Senate over former governor Prentice Cooper on the same day.) At this point in Tennessee history, winning the Democratic nomination to statewide office was tantamount to winning the office, as the strength of the Republican Party was almost entirely confined to the eastern third of the state.
Inaugurated governor in January, 1959, Clement's policies seemed to be essentially continued by Ellington's administration. Like Clement, Ellington was very close to the roadbuilding interests, and also favored increased funding for education. Slow progress in desegregation continued. Unlike Clement, Ellington was not entirely opposed to the death penalty; as a result, the last execution for forty years in Tennessee took place during his first term as governor.
It had long been apparent that just as Clement had supported Ellington as his successor in 1958, Ellington was prepared to do likewise for Clement in 1962, and Clement easily won the Democratic nomination and subsequent election. Ellington remained active in Democratic circles, and it was to the surprise of very few observers that he began in 1965 to position himself for another run for the governorship.
The path was not as easy in 1966 as it had been in 1958. Ellington was insufficiently progressive to suit the powerful Seigenthaler family of Nashville, which controlled the editorial content of the Nashville Tennessean, arguably the state's most influential newspaper. The Tennessean candidate was John Jay Hooker, a Nashville attorney whose lineage included first Chief Justice of the United States John Jay, his namesake, and General Joe Hooker, a Union general in the Civil War. John Jay Hooker's father, John Jay Hooker, Sr., was one of Nashville's best and most influential lawyers. The Tennessean backing gave Hooker's campaign credibility, as did the considerable fortune of his then-wife Eugenia ("Tish"), an heiress to the former National Life and Accident Insurance Company, which owned, among other Nashville institutions, the famous country music show the "Grand Ole Opry". Hooker had considerable support in the Nashville business community as well.
Ellington had backers of his own, however. Not only had the roadbuilders remembered their patron, but Ellington was also backed vehemently by the usually Republican Nashville Banner, the evening rival to the Tennessean, seemingly in part because Hooker was backed by the other paper, but also because he did seem to be the more conservative of the two major candidates. In the end, the August, 1966 Democratic primary was not very close, and Ellington won renomination for another term. No one qualified as a Republican candidate for governor of Tennessee in 1966 (the last time to date that this has occurred), and Ellington easily defeated a group of independent candidates which included two fairly well known East Tennessee Republicans who were independents in name only.
Inaugurated in January, 1967 for his second and final term, Ellington stressed that he would again continue Clement's policies. For the most part, he did so, encouraging road construction and more education spending, which was facilitated by an increase in the sales tax, among other revenue measures. Ellington had a close friendship with President Lyndon B. Johnson, and was a guest at the "LBJ Ranch" in Texas.
During the Selma to Montgomery marches Ellington played a key role in establishing contact and talks between President Johnson and Governor of Alabama George Wallace.
By far the most important Tennessee event of Ellington's second term was the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis in April, 1968, where King was assisting with a strike by sanitation workers. Ellington mobilized the National Guard to maintain law and order, and there was less disturbance in Memphis than in many other major U.S. cities. After the end of his second term, he disclaimed any further interests in elective politics. Republican Winfield Dunn was inaugurated to succeed him in January, 1971, and Ellington died less than two years later. Former President Johnson attended his funeral, and appeared to be in ill health by that point himself. Few Tennesseans were surprised when Johnson himself died just a few months later.