John Elliott Rankin (March 29, 1882 – November 26, 1960) was a Democratic politician from Mississippi who served sixteen terms in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1921 to 1953. He was co-author of the bill for the Tennessee Valley Authority and from 1933 to 1936 he supported the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which brought investment and jobs to the South.
Rankin proposed a bill to prohibit interracial marriage and opposed a bill to prohibit state use of the poll tax, which southern states had used since the turn of the century to disenfranchise most blacks and many poor whites. He used his power to support segregation and deny federal benefits programs to African Americans. For instance, in 1944, following the Port Chicago disaster, the U.S. Navy asked Congress to authorize payments of $5,000 to each of the victims' families. But when Rankin learned most of the dead were black sailors, he insisted the amount be reduced to $2,000; Congress settled the amount at $3,000 per family.
He was the main House sponsor of the G.I. Bill. Rankin insisted that its administration be decentralized, which led to continued discrimination against black veterans in the South and their virtual exclusion from one of the most important postwar programs to build social capital among United States residents. In the South, black veterans were excluded from loans, training and employment assistance. The historically black colleges were underfunded and could accept only about half the men who wanted to enroll.
On the floor of the House, Rankin expressed racist views of African Americans, Japanese Americans, and Jews, accusing Albert Einstein of being a communist agitator. During World War II, Rankin supported a bill that would incarcerate all Japanese Americans in the US and its territories in what he called "concentration camps". He later helped to establish the House Un-American Activities Committee which questioned the Hollywood Ten screenwriters during the McCarthy Era. He described an anti-lynching bill as "a bill to encourage Negroes to think they can rape our white women!" while shaking his fist at a gallery of mostly colored persons.
Early life
Rankin was born on March 29, 1882, near Bolands in Itawamba County, Mississippi to a family that had planter ancestors with large holdings before the Civil War. His parents were Thomas Braxton Rankin, a schoolteacher and resident of Tupelo, and Venola Modeste (née Rutledge), born in Arkansas as the daughter of Robert Rutledge and Ellen (née Conoway) Rutledge. His paternal ancestors had come to Mississippi from South Carolina in 1840.
After attending local schools and a normal school, Rankin attended college, graduating from the University of Mississippi law school in 1910. He was admitted to the bar the same year and established a practice in Clay County, near where he grew up. From 1911 to 1915, he served as the prosecuting attorney of Lee County.
He married Annie Laurie Burrous; the couple had a daughter, Annie Laurie Rankin.
He became prosecuting attorney of Lee County in 1912, a position he held until 1915.
Military service
Rankin served in the United States Army, enlisting just before the end of World War I. In all, he spent 21 days at the Army’s officers’ training camp. He would use his brief stint in the military to his political advantage, frequently portraying himself as a former war soldier who supported his fellow veterans.
Political career
Rankin twice ran unsuccessfully for Congress, in 1916 and 1918. He then started a newspaper called The New Era, which published anti-immigrant rhetoric and openly defended segregation and lynching.
Election to Congress
Since passage of a new constitution in 1890 that effectively disenfranchised African Americans, Mississippi had become a one-party state dominated by Democrats.
In 1920, Rankin ran once again for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, challenging Democratic incumbent Ezekiel Candler. During the campaign, Rankin pledged to support national Jim Crow laws, using his newspaper as a venue to promote his candidacy. With the support of the local labor unions, Rankin defeated Candler in a runoff. Rankin would serve sixteen consecutive terms (March 4, 1921 – January 3, 1953) as Mississippi's First District Representative.