John E. Rankin, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

    

John E. Rankin

lawyer and politician

Date of Birth: 29-Mar-1882

Place of Birth: Itawamba County, Mississippi, United States

Date of Death: 26-Nov-1960

Profession: lawyer, politician, university teacher, journalist

Nationality: United States

Zodiac Sign: Aries


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About John E. Rankin

  • 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 in 1933-36 he supported the New Deal programs of President Franklin D.
  • Roosevelt, which brought investment and jobs to the South.
  • After 1937 he was active in the Conservative Coalition that largely controlled domestic policy.
  • He was 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.He was the main House sponsor of 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 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 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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