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In 1968 Shirley Chisholm became the first Black woman elected to the United States Congress. In 1972 she launched a campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, breaking another political barrier.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
John S. Williams | |
|---|---|
 Williams in 1923 | |
| House Minority Leader | |
| In office March 4, 1903 – March 3, 1909 | |
| Deputy | James Tilghman Lloyd |
| Preceded by | James D. Richardson |
| Succeeded by | Champ Clark |
| Leader of the House Democratic Caucus | |
| In office March 4, 1903 – March 3, 1909 | |
| Preceded by | James D. Richardson |
| Succeeded by | Champ Clark |
| United States Senator from Mississippi | |
| In office March 4, 1911 – March 3, 1923 | |
| Preceded by | Hernando Money |
| Succeeded by | Hubert D. Stephens |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi | |
| In office March 4, 1893 – March 3, 1909 | |
| Preceded by | Joseph H. Beeman |
| Succeeded by | James Collier |
| Constituency | 5th district (1893–1903) 8th district (1903–1909) |
| Personal details | |
| Born | John Sharp Williams July 30, 1854 Memphis, Tennessee, U.S. |
| Died | September 27, 1932 (aged 78) |
| Party | Democratic |
| Spouse | Betty Webb |
| Children | 8[1] |
| Education | University of the South University of Virginia, Charlottesville (LLB) |
| Signature |  |
John Sharp Williams (July 30, 1854 – September 27, 1932) was a prominent American politician in the Democratic Party from the 1890s through the 1920s, and served as the minority leader of the United States House of Representatives from 1903 to 1908.
Williams was born in Memphis, Tennessee, but raised at the Cedar Grove plantation in Benton, Yazoo County, Mississippi. His mother died in his early childhood, and his father was killed fighting for the Confederacy at Shiloh during the Civil War.[2] After graduating from the Kentucky Military Institute in 1870, he studied at the University of the South before transferring to the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, where he was Phi Beta Kappa but did not complete all his science courses for his bachelor's degree.[3] He spent two years in Europe at the University of Heidelberg and what is now the University of Burgundy before returning to the University of Virginia to receive his law degree in 1876.[3] After a brief return to Memphis (where he married Elizabeth Dial Webb in 1877), Williams returned to Yazoo County, where from 1878 to 1893 he ran the family plantation and kept a law practice.
Elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1893, Williams soon became a leader of the Democratic minority, renowned for his speaking skill and wit. Like most other Southern Democrats of the day, he was a proponent of coining silver and an opponent of high tariffs. In 1906, when Great Britain launched HMS Dreadnought, Williams flippantly proposed that the name of an American battleship being built in response at the urging of Theodore Roosevelt be changed from Michigan to Skeered o' Nothin' and that the ship's first mission be to challenge Dreadnought to a duel off the coast of Long Island, Roosevelt's home, with Roosevelt and most of his cabinet on deck.[4]
During his time as ranking Democrat in the Republican-controlled House, Williams was given the privilege of choosing the Democrats assigned to committees by the House Speaker Joseph Gurney Cannon (by the rules of the House, Cannon was entitled to make all appointments himself), giving him tremendous power within the minority party. In gratitude, Williams was known to omit Democrats whom Cannon found particularly objectionable from committee assignments. Recognizing his status vis-à-vis Cannon, Williams jokingly described his relative political impotence in the Cannon-dominated Committee on Rules, "I am invited to the seances but I am never consulted about the spiritualistic appearances."[5]
By beating one of Mississippi's leading racebaiters, James K. Vardaman, Williams moved to the United States Senate in 1911 after an early election on 21 January 1908. He became one of Woodrow Wilson's strongest supporters, from Wilson's nomination for the Presidency in 1912 to the losing battle to ratify American participation in the League of Nations in 1920. During his time as a senator, he also served as a chairman of the Committee to Establish a University of the United States.
He made a notorious denunciation of the black race when he declared on December 20, 1898: "You could ship-wreck 10,000 illiterate white Americans on a desert island, and in three weeks they would have a fairly good government, conceived and administered upon fairly democratic lines. You could ship-wreck 10,000 negroes, every one of whom was a graduate of Harvard University, and in less than three years, they would have retrograded governmentally; half of the men would have been killed, and the other half would have two wives apiece."[6]
After retiring from the Senate in 1923, Williams returned to his family plantation, Cedar Grove Plantation in Yazoo County, Mississippi, where he spent the last decade of his life, dying in late 1932.
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
John Sharp Williams (July 30, 1854 – September 27, 1932) was a prominent American politician in the Democratic Party from the 1890s through the 1920s, and served as the minority leader of the United States House of Representatives from 1903 to 1908.
John S. Williams may refer to: John Sam Williams (born 1966), American basketball player John Scott Williams (1893–1944), Canadian air force officer John Sharp Williams (1854–1932), US Senator from Mississippi and Minority Leader of the House of Representatives John Sibley Williams (born 1978), American poet and fiction writer John Skelton Williams (1865–1926), American Comptroller of the Currency John Stewart Williams (1911–1964), English cricketer John Stuart Williams (1818–1898), American Confederate general and US Senator from Kentucky
Although never given an official name, a "Mammy memorial" was a proposed memorial to be located in the District of Columbia, United States, that would have honored enslaved African domestic workers of the Antebellum South, known pejoratively as "mammys". The idea was reported as early as 1910 in a newspaper article. A group called the "Mammy Memorial Institute", based in Athens, Georgia, sought donations from the public for the monument. In 1923, Mississippi Senator John Sharp Williams introduced a bill for its construction that was backed by the United Daughters of the Confederacy and Congressman Charles Manly Stedman from North Carolina made a speech in favour of it in the United States House of Representatives which was cheered by representatives from both Republican and Democratic parties. Design proposals were submitted to the United Daughters of the Confederacy by sculptors and architects seeking the commission. These included submissions by Canadian-American Ulric Stonewall Jackson Dunbar and Romanian/Hungarian-American George Julian Zolnay, known as the Sculptor of the Confederacy for the number of commissions he had undertaken of Confederate subjects on behalf of Southern clients. The proposed monument was immediately condemned by African Americans and other groups such as the Women's Relief Corps of the Grand Army of the Republic and the New York World newspaper. It was condemned in a widely-circulated editorial in the Washington Evening Star written by Mary Church Terrell. The Chicago Defender published a cartoon showing a white southerner presenting plans for the monument to the hanging body of a lynching victim. Many commentators viewed the memorial as objectionable in itself as well as a waste of money that could be better used improving the lives of living black people. Petitions and letters opposed to the monument were sent to politicians, including ones sent to Vice-President Calvin Coolidge and House Speaker Frederick H. Gillett that carried the signatures of 2000 black women. Ultimately, the controversy raised by the monument caused its bill to be dropped and no further action on it was taken. The monument would have been located on Massachusetts Avenue. In 2002, a Statue of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk was erected on the site.
The 1922 United States Senate election in Mississippi was held on November 7, 1922. Incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator John Sharp Williams did not run for re-election to a third term in office. In the Democratic primary to succeed Williams, U.S. Representative Hubert D. Stephens defeated former Senator James K. Vardaman, who had held Mississippi's other Senate seat for one term. The race required a run-off, as neither candidate achieved a majority in the August primary with suffragette Belle Kearney in the race. Stephens's victory in the September 5 run-off was tantamount to election; he faced only nominal opposition from the Republican and Socialist candidates in the November general election.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
