Career
In 1935, he was elected to Congress from the Mobile-based 1st District following Congressman John McDuffie's appointment to a federal judgeship. Since he hadn't voted in any election since the 1920s, he had to pay 14 years' worth of back poll taxes to be able to 0cast a vote for himself. He won the seat again in 1936 and was reelected an impressive 12 more times. He was chairman of the House Patents Committee from 1943 to 1947. He ran in a special election for the United States Senate in 1946, but finished a distant third.
Boykin was considered a congressman whose mission was to take care of his district's citizens. Although his seniority allowed him to steer millions of federal dollars to his district, he was known for missing roll call votes more often than any other member of the state's congressional delegation.
Although Boykin supported racial segregation (as were most Alabama politicians of the time), he had a reputation for helping black constituents even if they couldn't vote. He had a particularly warm relationship with Alex Herman, the father of Bill Clinton's Secretary of Labor, Alexis Herman. For example, he encouraged Herman to deliver black votes in the Mobile area to Senator Lister Hill during Hill's contentious 1962 election. It is believed that Hill's 6,000-vote margin of victory in that election was due mostly to heavy black turnout in Mobile.
He lost his seat when Alabama's congressional delegation was cut from nine to eight members after the 1960 United States Census. The state legislature couldn't agree on which district to eliminate, so all nine incumbents ran against each other in an unusual statewide election. The last-place finisher would be dropped, while the eight survivors would become at-large congressmen. Boykin finished last, trailing the eighth-place finisher, Kenneth A. Roberts of the 4th District, by 100,000 votes.
Read more about this topic: Frank W. Boykin
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