John E. Rankin
| John E. Rankin | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Chairman of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee | |
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In office January 3, 1949 – January 3, 1953 |
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| Speaker | Sam Rayburn |
| Preceded by | Edith Nourse Rogers |
| Succeeded by | Edith Nourse Rogers |
| Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Mississippi's 1st district |
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In office March 4, 1921 – January 3, 1953 |
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| Preceded by | Ezekiel Candler |
| Succeeded by | Thomas Abernethy |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
John Elliott Rankin March 29, 1882 Itawamba County, Mississippi |
| Died | November 26, 1960 (aged 78) Tupelo, Mississippi |
| Political party | Democratic |
John Elliott Rankin (March 29, 1882 – November 26, 1960) was a Democratic congressman who served for sixteen terms from the U.S. State of Mississippi, from 1920 to 1952. He was co-author of the bill for the Tennessee Valley Authority and supported the New Deal programs of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which brought investment and jobs to the South. He was described as a "racial demagogue", supporting racial segregation and white supremacy.
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 of varied 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.
To agree to support the GI 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 United States House of Representatives, Rankin expressed racist views of African Americans,Japanese Americans, and Jews, accusing Albert Einstein of being a communist agitator. During World War II, Rankin had supported a bill to incarcerate all Japanese Americans in the US and its territories in camps; almost all ethnic Japanese on the West Coast were incarcerated in inland camps. In the late 20th century Congress authorized payment of reparations to survivors and their descendants.
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