Although the year 1964 is often portrayed as the year the so-called “party switch” happened, it does have significance. While the South didn’t decisively move to the GOP that year, it did make the GOP an actual competitive party in the region. Republicans won an open seat in Georgia, won five of eight of Alabama’s seats, and won one of Mississippi’s seats with chicken farmer and one-time member of the Fish and Game Commission Prentiss Lafayette Walker (1917-1998).
Something to understand about Mississippi is that the state had been in rebellion against the national Democratic Party since 1960, when its voters elected an uncommitted slate of electors who cast their votes for conservative segregationist Senator Harry Byrd of Virginia. Thus, Kennedy was unpopular in Mississippi and his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, doubled down on the national Democrats’ unpopularity in his signing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Johnson’s signing of this law and Senator Barry Goldwater’s vote against it was all the convincing Mississippi voters needed to give the Republican contender 87% of the vote. Congressional Democrats were fortunate that Republicans ran only one candidate that year, as he toppled Democrat W. Arthur Winstead, the first Republican to win a Congressional election in Mississippi in 82 years. There was nothing to indicate that Winstead was any friendlier to civil rights than Walker, and his record was conservative. It was purely a backlash against the national Democratic Party that brought Winstead down. A campaign ad of Walker’s in The Magee Courier of October 29, 1964, read, “Prentiss Walker Promises To Work Toward: 1. Repeal Of The Civil Rights Bill. 2. Stopping Import Of Foreign Beef. 3. Stopping Foreign Aid To Communist Countries. 4. Conservative States Rights Government. 5. Local Control of Schools. The Democratic Party Is Dead! If You Have Truly Had Enough, Go To The Polls Tuesday And Vote for Prentiss Walker” (12). For many Mississippi voters, the Democratic Party was indeed dead, at least in 1964. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan would relate Walker’s humorous story regarding this campaign at a Jackson, Mississippi fundraiser, “He dropped in on a farm and introduced himself as a Republican candidate. And as he tells it, the farmer’s eyes lit up, and then he said, “Wait till I get my wife. We’ve never seen a Republican before.’” [Laughter]
And a few minutes later he was back with his wife, and they asked Prentiss if he wouldn’t give them a speech. Well, he looked around for kind of a podium, something to stand on, and then the only thing available was a pile of that stuff that the late Mrs. Truman said it had taken her 35 years to get Harry to call “fertilizer.” [Laughter] So, he stepped up on that and made his speech. And apparently he won them over. And they told him it was the first time they’d ever heard a Republican. And he says, “That’s okay. That’s the first time I’ve ever given a speech from a Democratic platform.” [Laughter] (Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum).
In Congress, Walker voted as he ran, as an ultra-conservative. The conservative Americans for Constitutional Action found nothing wrong with how he voted in the Great Society Congress and the liberal Americans for Democratic Action found nothing right. Walker’s DW-Nominate score was a 0.516, one of the highest of the representatives in the Great Society Congress. Practically every measure supported by the Johnson Administration had his vote of disapproval, including Medicare and the Constitutional amendment for presidential succession. Walker, like every other Mississippi politician, opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. In an early speech, he defended his state while admitting that most Mississippians were conservative and stood for segregation, stating that changes in opinion in the public on such matters would have to come gradually (The Enterprise-Journal). One cause he pushed aside from opposition to civil rights was another issue that he emphasized on his campaign: opposition to foreign aid to communist nations. In 1966, Walker sponsored an amendment to deny funds for communist nations (aimed at Poland and Yugoslavia at the time) under the Food for Freedom Act. Although his proposal got the votes of all but six Republican representatives, it failed in the overwhelmingly Democratic Congress on June 9th, 157-200. At the time, Walker looked like a real start for the Mississippi GOP.
The 1966 Election: Walker Takes a Shot at Big Jim
In 1966, Walker tried to do something bold: run against Senator James Eastland, often known by his opponents as “Big Jim” for his power, perceived and actual. Walker ran on a platform of Eastland being too friendly to the Johnson Administration and Bobby Kennedy. However, he had been in the Senate since the 1940s and had a long history of using his post as chairman of the Judiciary Committee to bury civil rights legislation. For instance, the Senate had to vote to bypass his committee to get the Civil Rights Act of 1964 passed. Despite Walker running to Eastland’s right and as a segregationist, many newly registered black voters saw Walker as preferable. Dr. Douglas Conner of Starkville, Mississippi, stated that “He represents something disgusting to the Negro. It is his image as a great white father, the white plantation owner. It is unthinkable that a Negro would vote for Eastland” (Glass). However, there were a few contradictions surrounding Walker himself. Eastland pointed out that he had attended a meeting of the Americans for the Preservation of the White Race (a KKK front) and that “Walker can’t run as a racist. He appointed a Negro to the Air Force academy. We have the proof” (Glass). However, Walker’s path to victory was a rather difficult one. As columnist Holmes Alexander (1966) pointed out, “To score over Eastland, Walker, an ardent white racist, would have to be the fusion candidate of the Klan, the NAACP, the Goldwater right-wingers, the Nixon middle-roaders, and the AFL-CIO laborites” (4).
In one final ad for the Senate, Walker’s campaign gave its pitch. It touted Walker as in opposition to the “no win policy” in Vietnam, an opponent of the Great Society, an opponent of the “War on Poverty” as giving money to political bosses and civil rights demonstrators rather than the poor, and foreign aid while condemning Eastland for voting for Justice Abe Fortas (which was a unanimous voice vote) and citing multiple votes against anti-communist amendments on foreign aid (Simpson County News). There was truth to the latter, as Eastland had voted against Senator Jenner’s (R-Ind.) amendment to retain bans on trade with communist nations in 1957, opposed the Republican effort to ban stop wheat sales to the USSR and Hungary in 1963, and opposed Senator Tower’s (R-Tex.) amendment to bar Export-Import bank funds for sales to communist nations in 1964. Senator Eastland’s campaign emphasized in its ad the narrative that Mississippi had voted for Goldwater because he was more conservative than Johnson rather than a big shift to the Republican Party and pointed out that Goldwater had delivered a speech in which he stated that Republicans accepted integration while only Southern Democrats were against and that Walker had not said a word against it (The Newton Record). Most of Walker’s charges of Eastland being insufficient, however, relied upon his personal connections with LBJ, and only the anti-communist amendments were votes of substance he could use against Eastland and ultimately, he flew too close to the sun.
“Big Jim” had huge institutional advantages in Mississippi and Mississippi voters just weren’t buying the “Eastland the friend of the liberals” narrative. He regularly bombed in his ratings with Americans for Democratic Action and Americans for Constitutional Action found him conservative on enough issues to satisfy Mississippians, even as they rated Walker a perfect 100% for his whole term. The truth is, Walker didn’t have that much room to move given the disparate groups that he needed to cater to in order to win and he would have likely been better off trying to hold on to his Congressional seat. On most substantive issues, he and Eastland were on the same page, and Walker was hoping that the Republican vote in Mississippi would extend beyond 1964, but old party loyalties held strong, and he lost by nearly 40 points. Although he made no effort to get the black vote, he won a considerable amount of it, but this is because many black voters were dying to cast a vote against Eastland. Worse yet for Walker, the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee, which was not pleased with outright segregationist candidates, did not pour resources into this election, only giving him token support (Evans and Novak, 35). In 1968, Walker attempted to win back his old seat, but the district was pleased enough with his successor, Sonny Montgomery, and he only got 30% of the vote. That year, to highlight his continued segregationist stance, he had endorsed George Wallace rather than his own party’s nominee, Richard Nixon (Hattiesburg American). Walker would not be the transformational figure in Mississippi politics for the GOP, rather Thad Cochran and Trent Lott, both first elected to Congress in 1972, succeeding retiring Democrats, would serve this role. Walker’s last race for political office was in the 1972 Senate race as an Independent, but he gained little traction. Today, a lake near Walker’s hometown of Mize is named after him. To me, Prentiss Walker represents lost potential. Had he not opted to challenge Eastland, would he have won reelection to the House? And if so, would he have proved in the long run to be a more politically complex figure than his Great Society Congress self like Alabama’s Jack Edwards, Bill Dickinson, and especially John Buchanan, all who voted to sustain the Philadelphia Plan only four years after voting against the Voting Rights Act? Would this chicken farmer have been the guiding light for the GOP in the state like Florida’s Bill Cramer? We will never know.
References
ADA Voting Records. Americans for Democratic Action.
Retrieved from
Alexander, H. (1966, July 13). Eastland Faces Tough Opponent in GOP’s Prentiss Walker. The News-Star, 4.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/1038686074/
Evans, R. and Novak, R. (1966, April 14). GOP Fears Faux Pas By Nixon On Dixie Trip. The Indianapolis Star, 35.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/105520025/
Glass, A.J. (1966, April 26). Eastland Faces an Arch-Conservative Republican. The Kansas City Times, 28.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/675054281/
Goldwater’s Ghost (James Eastland Campaign Advertisement). (1966, November 2). The Newton Record, 12.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/317269887/
Prentiss Walker Advertisement. (1964, October 29). The Magee Courier, 12.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/267123184/
Prentiss Walker Advertisement. (1966, November 3). Simpson County News, 12.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/284496709/
Prentiss Walker backs Wallace. (1968, October 18). Hattiesburg American, 16.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/277015986/
Prentiss Walker Moves to Improve State Image. (1965, January 7). Enterprise-Journal, 11.
Retrieved from
https://www.newspapers.com/image/318408236/
Remarks at a Mississippi Republican Party Fundraising Dinner in Jackson. (1983, June 20). Ronald Reagan Presidential Library & Museum.
Retrieved from
Walker, Prentiss Lafayette. Voteview.
Retrieved from
Mad Politics: The Bizarre, Fascinating, and Unknown of American Political History 