John Bell Williams

John Bell Williams (December 4, 1918 – March 25, 1983) was an American Democratic politician who was Governor of his native Mississippi from 1968 to 1972. He was first elected to Congress in 1946, the youngest man to be elected U.S. Representative from Mississippi. In what was then a one-party state under the Democrats, he was re-elected repeatedly through the 1966 election.

Early life and education
John Bell Williams was born in 1918 in Raymond, the county seat of Hinds County, near the state capital of Jackson. He graduated in 1938 from Hinds Community College, then known as Hinds Junior College. He attended the University of Mississippi at Oxford and graduated in 1940 from Mississippi College School of Law, then known simply as the Jackson Law School.

In November 1941, he enlisted with the United States Army Air Corps and served as a pilot during World War II. He retired from active service after losing the lower part of his left arm as a result of a bomber crash in 1944.

Political career
In November 1946, Williams was elected at the age of 27 (he turned 28 in December) to the U.S. House of Representatives as a Democrat from the 7th congressional district. (It was eliminated in 1950 and he was later elected from the 4th and 3rd congressional districts. This was redefined in 2003.) He was the youngest U.S. Representative to have been elected from Mississippi.

Williams advocated states' rights and segregation. He joined his state's delegation in a walkout of the 1948 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He supported Strom Thurmond's Dixiecrat presidential campaign, whose primary platform was racial segregation. Thurmond easily carried the electoral vote in Mississippi and three other southern states.

After the Supreme Court issued its Brown v. Board of Education ruling on May 17, 1954, which outlawed racial segregation in public schools, Williams made a speech on the House floor branding the day 'Black Monday'. Williams supported the Democratic Stevenson-Sparkman campaign in 1952, but he favored unpledged Democratic electors in 1956 and 1960.

In 1964, Williams endorsed Republican Barry M. Goldwater in the general election against U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and helped raise funds for Goldwater in Mississippi. Because of his activities for Goldwater, the Democratic caucus (in the House of Representatives) stripped Williams and a colleague, Albert W. Watson of South Carolina, of their House seniority.

Williams remained a Democrat and retained his seat in 1966. Watson soon defected to the GOP.

Governor
In 1967, Williams ran for governor. The field of candidates was large, including former Governor Ross Barnett and two future governors, William Winter and Bill Waller. In the primary campaign, Williams claimed that former Governor Ross Barnett made a secret deal with the Kennedys during the 1962 desegregation of the University of Mississippi.

In the first round of balloting, Williams finished second to the moderate candidate, William Winter. In the runoff, Williams defeated Winter by 61,000 votes. In the general election, Williams handily defeated Democrat-turned-Republican Rubel Phillips, in his second unsuccessful campaign for governor. Phillips's running mate for lieutenant governor in 1963, Stanford Morse, a member of the Mississippi State Senate from Gulfport from 1956 to 1964, endorsed Williams in the 1967 race.

During the campaign, Williams joked that when the returns are tabulated the Republicans "won't be able to find a Rubel in the rubble."

During Williams's term as governor, Mississippi was ordered to desegregate its public school system by a federal court since there it had made little progress since the 1954 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed such schools unconstitutional. A case had been brought by civil rights activists and some desegregation of schools had happened at local levels. Williams did not defy the court, and in December 1978, 24 years after Brown v. Board of Education, Mississippi officially removed from its state constitution the mandate that schools be segregated.

Return to private practice
After his term, Williams resumed his law practice. He endorsed, for president, Republicans Gerald Ford in 1976 and Ronald Reagan in 1980 rather than the Democratic nominee both times, Jimmy Carter of Georgia.