Theodore G. Bilbo

Theodore Gilmore Bilbo was an American attorney and Democratic Party politician from Mississippi who served as the 39th and 43rd governor of Mississippi from 1916 to 1920 and 1928 to 1932 and represented the state in the United States Senate from 1935 to 1947. Bilbo was a populist, demagogue, and filibusterer whose name was synonymous during his own lifetime with white supremacy and racist extremism. He died of cancer in the midst of an extended controversy over his Senate credentials and accusations that he had accepted bribes and encouraged violence to prevent black Mississippians from voting against him in 1946. Bilbo was born in Pearl River County, Mississippi and educated in rural schools. He attended Peabody Normal College and Vanderbilt University Law School. Though he did not graduate from either school, he opened a law practice in Poplarville in 1907 and entered politics, serving in the Mississippi State Senate from 1908 to 1912. Bilbo supported white supremacy and segregation and was a member of the second Ku Klux Klan during the 1920s.