James Eastland - Views On Civil Rights and Race

Views On Civil Rights and Race

Eastland is best known for his strong support of states' rights and for his opposition to the civil rights movement.

When the Supreme Court issued its decision in the landmark case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas 347 US 483 (1954), Eastland, like most Southern Democrats, denounced it. In a speech given in Senatobia, Mississippi on August 12, 1955, he said: "On May 17, 1954, the Constitution of the United States was destroyed because of the Supreme Court's decision. You are not obliged to obey the decisions of any court which are plainly fraudulent sociological considerations."

Eastland did not mince words when it came to his feelings about the races mingling. He testified to the Senate 10 days after the Brown decision came down:

The Southern institution of racial segregation or racial separation was the correct, self-evident truth which arose from the chaos and confusion of the Reconstruction period. Separation promotes racial harmony. It permits each race to follow its own pursuits, and its own civilization. Segregation is not discrimination... Mr. President, it is the law of nature, it is the law of God, that every race has both the right and the duty to perpetuate itself. All free men have the right to associate exclusively with members of their own race, free from governmental interference, if they so desire.

When three civil rights workers Mickey Schwerner, James Chaney, and Andrew Goodman went missing in Mississippi on June 21, 1964, he reportedly told President Lyndon Johnson that the incident was a hoax and there was no Ku Klux Klan in the state, surmising that the three had gone to Chicago:

Johnson: Jim, we've got three kids missing down there. What can I do about it?

Eastland: Well, I don't know. I don't believe there's ... I don't believe there's three missing.

Johnson: We've got their parents down here.

Eastland: I believe it's a publicity stunt...

Johnson once said that, "Jim Eastland could be standing right in the middle of the worst Mississippi flood ever known, and he'd say the niggers caused it, helped out by the Communists."

Eastland, along with Senators Robert Byrd, John McClellan, Olin D. Johnston, Sam Ervin, and Strom Thurmond, made unsuccessful attempts to block Thurgood Marshall's confirmation to the Federal Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court. Often, offensive statements related to race were attributed to Eastland during this period even though they may have been made by other speakers. Although Eastland was a staunch segregationist, he refrained from the most extreme rhetoric that characterized other civil rights opponents.

Eastland, like most of his southern colleagues, opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Its passage caused many Mississippi Democrats to openly support Barry Goldwater's presidential bid that year, but Eastland did not publicly oppose the election of Lyndon Johnson. In fact, four years earlier he had quietly supported John F. Kennedy's presidential campaign. Although Goldwater was heavily defeated by incumbent Lyndon Johnson, he carried Mississippi with 87% of the popular vote (his best showing in any state) due to his opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Eastland was often at odds with Johnson's policy on civil rights, but their friendship remained close and Johnson often sought Eastland's support and guidance on other issues, such as the failed Chief Justice nomination of Abe Fortas in 1968. In the 1950s, Johnson was one of three Senators from the South who didn't sign the Southern Manifesto, as did Eastland and most Southern Senators.

Contrary to popular opinion, Eastland did not use the appointment of Harold Cox to a federal judgeship as leverage against John F. Kennedy's appointment of Thurgood Marshall to a federal judgeship. Cox was nominated by Kennedy more than a year before Marshall even came up for consideration, and his nomination resulted from a personal conversation between Cox and Kennedy. The president, not wanting to upset the powerful chairman of the Judiciary Committee, generally acceded to Eastland's requests on judicial confirmations in Mississippi, keeping white segregationists in control of the Federal courts in the state.

During his later years, Eastland avoided associating himself with racist stands in the face of increasing black political power in Mississippi. During this period Eastland hired black Mississippians to serve on the staff of the Judiciary Committee. Eastland noted to aides that his earlier position on race was due primarily to the political realities of the times, i.e., as a major political figure in a southern state in the 1950s and 1960s. He considered running for reelection in 1978 and sought black support. He won the support of civil rights leader and NAACP president Aaron Henry, but he ultimately decided not to seek re-election in 1978. Due in part to the independent candidacy of Charles Evers siphoning off votes from the Democratic candidate, Republican 4th District Representative Thad Cochran won the race to succeed him. Eastland resigned two days after Christmas to give Cochran a leg up in seniority. After his retirement, he remained friends with Aaron Henry and sent contributions to the NAACP, but he publicly stated that he "didn't regret a thing" in his public career.