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See Also

See Also in
Notorious Lives

Orval E. Faubus

Huey Long

Leander Perez

George C. Wallace.

Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives

Theodore G. Bilbo

by Laurence W. Mazzeno

U.S. senator (1934-1947) and segregationist

Cause of notoriety: As governor of Mississippi and as a U.S. senator, Bilbo attained national prominence in fighting integration and promoting a policy of removing to Africa all African Americans.

Active: 1908-1947

Locale: Mississippi and Washington, D.C.

Early Life

Theodore G. Bilbo (BIHL-boh) was born in a poor farming community in rural Mississippi at a time when racial segregation was the law in southern states. Although he attended several colleges and law schools, he never earned a degree. Nevertheless, at the beginning of the twentieth century he became a public school teacher and later was admitted to the bar, allowing him to practice law in Poplarville, Mississippi. In 1908 he was elected a state senator, launching a political career that would last until his death.

Political Career

As a politician, Bilbo was an indefatigable campaigner who used his exceptional oratorical skills to build a strong political base among the poor whites of Mississippi. He operated on the edge of the law and was charged more than once with crimes such as bribery, contempt, and assault. Elected governor twice (1916-1920, 1928-1932), he implemented policies that favored working-class whites over Mississippi’s upper classes. Both terms were marked by significant controversy, as Bilbo was not above breaking promises to his financial backers and to those in the Democratic Party in Mississippi who had aided him in his campaigns. Nevertheless, he managed to continue in office by appealing to his constituency, who frequently felt they were being squeezed economically by the business community, on one hand, and on the other by African Americans, who were perceived as being given too many privileges by the federal government. Bilbo supported numerous populist programs that improved the lot of whites in the state. Ironically, he was one of the few southern politicians to support the Roman Catholic Al Smith for president in 1928, and many of the policies he advocated in Mississippi were similar to those in the Democratic platform on which Franklin Roosevelt ran in 1932.

Bilbo is shown in this 1946 cartoon with the caption “Do you see something crooked, senator?”.

ph_0111326599-Bilbo.jpg

(NARA)

After Bilbo’s second term as governor, Mississippi’s U.S. senator Pat Harrison secured for Bilbo a sinecure in Washington collecting press clippings for the Department of Agriculture. The position brought Bilbo ridicule, both in Washington and in Mississippi. He returned to his home state and in 1934 ran an energetic and sometimes vicious campaign for the U.S. Senate, defeating incumbent senator Hubert Stephens. In the Senate, Bilbo was considered something of a laughingstock; his raucous manner made him unwelcome in most circles. He was a strong supporter of Roosevelt, however, and the president made use of him on occasion to help pass New Deal legislation.

Although Bilbo held racist attitudes all his life, it was not until the mid-1930’s that he began involving himself in projects that led to his identification as the embodiment of racist attitudes among southern whites. He lent his support to various “back to Africa” movements, speaking with passion about how much better African Americans would fare if they returned to the land of their origin—and how much better America would be if they left. In 1939, he introduced the Greater Liberia Bill in the Senate, proposing that the government pay every African American who agreed to leave the United States. Although this legislation failed, Bilbo’s efforts highlighted the fact that in the South there was no real equality between the races.

Furthermore, Bilbo’s vocal encouragement for this separatist policy led him into increasingly strident segregationist activities. He began espousing the position that African Americans should not be allowed to vote, a stance that caused considerable consternation among his Senate colleagues. Bilbo filibustered against a bill that would have outlawed lynching. He worked to evict blacks from their homes in Washington, D.C. He felt strongly enough about the threat to racial purity for whites that he authored a pamphlet, Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization, which appeared in 1947 and became something of a Bible for white supremacists.

Despite their senator’s reputation in Washington, the voters of Mississippi returned Bilbo to the Senate twice, in 1940 and again in 1946. By this point, Bilbo’s outspoken support of racist policies, coupled with accusations of misuse of his position to award contracts to friends, caused the Senate to consider a motion not to seat him. Shortly after winning his third election, however, he developed oral cancer and died in a New Orleans hospital before action could be taken on this unusual and extreme measure.

Impact

Theodore Bilbo’s advocacy of racist policies made him a figure of significant controversy on the national scene, but in the South he became a hero to many whites who felt that African Americans had already been treated too kindly by the federal government. Other politicians in southern states took up his cry for continued separation of the races. The ideas Bilbo espoused on the Senate floor and in his book were echoed in the strident speeches of governors Ross Barnett of Mississippi, Lester Maddox of Georgia, Orval E. Faubus of Arkansas, and George Wallace of Alabama as they fought to keep southern institutions from being integrated in the 1960’s.

Further Reading

1 

Brinkley, David. “Theodore Bilbo.” In Brinkley’s Beat. New York: Knopf, 2003. Provides an overview of Bilbo’s career and insights into his character, concentrating on his activities as a U.S. senator.

2 

Fitzgerald, Michael. “’We Have Found a Moses’: Theodore Bilbo, Black Nationalism, and the Greater Liberia Bill of 1939.” Journal of Southern History 63, no. 2 (May, 1997): 293-320. Examines Bilbo’s alliance with various Black Nationalist groups in the 1930’s and outlines his efforts to gain federal support for a back to Africa movement.

3 

Green, A. Wigfall. The Man Bilbo. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1963. Detailed biography that attempts to explain the complex and controversial politician and assess his impact on state and national politics.

4 

Morgan, Chester. Redneck Liberal: Theodore G. Bilbo and the New Deal. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985. Extensive analysis of Bilbo’s work to promote progressive causes in Mississippi and in Washington, D.C.; examines the curious paradox of Bilbo’s liberal views on social reform and his deep-seated belief in white racial superiority.

Citation Types

MLA 9th
Mazzeno, Laurence W. "Theodore G. Bilbo." Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives, edited by Carl L. Bankston III, Salem Press, 2007. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GLN_1056.
APA 7th
Mazzeno, L. W. (2007). Theodore G. Bilbo. In C. L. Bankston III (Ed.), Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.
CMOS 17th
Mazzeno, Laurence W. "Theodore G. Bilbo." Edited by Carl L. Bankston III. Great Lives from History: Notorious Lives. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2007. Accessed September 17, 2026. online.salempress.com.