Perry Wilbon Howard

Perry Wilbon Howard, II (June 14, 1877 - February 1, 1961), was an African American attorney and longtime Republican National Committeeman from the U.S. state of Mississippi.^[1] He served as United States Special Assistant to the Attorney General under Warren G. Harding.^[2]

Howard was twice tried on corruption-related charges stemming from his effective control over Republican patronage in Mississippi; he was acquitted both times by all-white juries.^[3] Following the trials, he resigned from his post in the United States Department of Justice, but retained his position as head of the Republican Party in Mississippi.^[4]

Biography

Howard was born in Ebenezer in Holmes County in central Mississippi on June 14, 1877 to Sallie (1842-?) and Perry Wilbon Howard, I (1835-1907). He graduated from the historically black Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi and then studied mathematics at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied the law at DePaul University College of Law in Chicago, Illinois. By 1905, Howard was a member of the Mississippi Bar Association and practiced law in the capital city of Jackson.^[5]

He married and had a son, Perry Wilbon Howard, III (1912-1967).^[6]

He was tried on corruption charges in 1928 over his state's Republican patronage system.^[7]

Howard led U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft's Southern delegation at the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago.^[8]Taft, however, lost the party nomination to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1956, the Howard forces lost control of the Mississippi state party to a white conservative faction led by Wirt Yerger, an insurance agent in Jackson.^[9]Howard continued to serve as the Republican national committeeman until his death. In addition to the Yerger and Howard factions, there were two other smaller groups contending for intraparty power, the Lily-White Movement, led by George L. Sheldon, a former governor of Nebraska, who had run for governor of Mississippi in 1947 and polled only 2.5 percent of the vote, and the "Democrats for Eisenhower" under E. O. Spencer. Some media had incorrectly identified Yerger as the head of the "Lily Whites", rather than the leader of a new group of conservative businesspeople and lawyers, many of whom had been in the Young Republicans organization earlier. Yerger is considered the "founding father" of the state GOP, but it was decades before the Republican Party acquire majority status in Mississippi.^[10]

Howard died on February 1, 1961.^[1][11]

References