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J. Thomas Heflin

James Thomas Heflin
Cottontom.jpg
United States Senator
from Alabama
In office
November 3, 1920 – March 3, 1931
Preceded by B. B. Comer
Succeeded by John H. Bankhead II
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives
from Alabama's 5th district
In office
May 19, 1904 – November 1, 1920
Preceded by Charles Winston Thompson
Succeeded by William B. Bowling
25th Secretary of State of Alabama
In office
1903–1904
Governor William D. Jelks
Preceded by Robert P. McDavid
Succeeded by Edmund R. McDavid
Personal details
Born April 9, 1869
Louina, Alabama
Died April 22, 1951 (aged 82)
LaFayette, Alabama
Nationality American
Political party Democratic
Alma mater Alabama Agricultural and Mechanical College

James Thomas Heflin (April 9, 1869 – April 22, 1951), nicknamed "Cotton Tom," was a leading proponent of white supremacy who served as a Democratic Congressman and United States Senator from Alabama.

Born in Louina, Alabama, he attended the Agriculture and Mechanical College of Alabama (now Auburn University). He never graduated but independently read law and was admitted to the bar in 1893, practicing law in LaFayette, Alabama.

Heflin first rose to political prominence as a delegate who helped to draft the 1901 Alabama state constitution. Heflin argued, successfully, for completely excluding Black Alabamians from voting, stating that he truly believed that "God Almighty intended the negro to be the servant of the white man." As Secretary of State in 1903, Heflin was an outspoken supporter of men put on trial for enslaving African American laborers through fraudulent convict leasing. As detailed in Douglas A. Blackmon's book, Slavery by Another Name, these practices were a brutal, post-emancipation form of slavery in which African Americans were often illegally convicted of crimes and then sold to farmers or industrialists. Heflin explicitly used white supremacist rhetoric to mobilize support for the defendants. He argued before a group of Confederate veterans that forcing African Americans to labor was a means to hold them in their proper social position.

In 1904, Heflin was elected to the United States House of Representatives as a Democrat to fill the vacancy left by the death of Charles Winston Thompson. Four years later, while a member of the House, he shot and seriously wounded a black man who confronted him on a Washington streetcar. Heflin threw the victim Lewis Lundy, off the streetcar and shot at him through the streetcar window. Lundy received a wound to the head, reports vary on whether it was due to pistol-whipping by Heflin, by the fall from the streetcar, or by a bullet wound. A white bystander, Thomas McCreary, was wounded by a stray bullet fired by Helflin. Although indicted, Heflin had the charges dismissed. In subsequent campaigns, he bragged of the shooting as one of his major career accomplishments.


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