Changes

====1946 voter suppression, denial of Senate readmission, subsequent death====

====1946 voter suppression, denial of Senate readmission, subsequent death====

In 1946, after four white men beat a black Army veteran for attempting to register to vote, Senator Bilbo delivered a radio address urging every “red-blooded Anglo-Saxon man in Mississippi to resort to any means to keep hundreds of Negroes from the polls in the July 2nd primary.” He continued, “And if you don’t know what that means, you are just not up on your persuasive measures.” Southern senators successfully defended Bilbo against an [[NAACP]]-led effort to remove him from office for inciting violence against black voters. Despite having been re-elected, he was blocked from taking office.

In 1946, after four white men beat a black Army veteran for attempting to register to vote, Senator Bilbo delivered a radio address urging every "every red-blooded American who believes in the superiority and integrity of the white race to get out and see that no n***** votes."<ref>"Theodore G. Bilbo and the Decline of Public Racism," p. 20.</ref> Subsequently, violent voter suppression became rampant in the primary as white Mississippi Democrats formed mobs twice preventing a group of black veterans, including Medgar Evers, from voting in Decatur.

 

Southern senators successfully defended Bilbo against an [[NAACP]]-led effort to remove him from office for inciting violence against black voters. Despite having been re-elected, he was blocked from taking office.

Prior to dying of oral cancer at the age of 69 following decades of spouting hatred, bigotry, and inciting violence, the last weeks of Bilbo's life were spent writing a racist screed, ''Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization'', where he promoted fearmongering of "race-mixing" and called for the repatriation of black Americans to [[West Africa]]. (a relocation bill he sponsored in the Senate in 1938 had failed) Never having repudiated his lifelong legacy of white supremacist hatred, Bilbo remained a figurehead for segregationists in the South long after his death.

Prior to dying of oral cancer at the age of 69 following decades of spouting hatred, bigotry, and inciting violence, the last weeks of Bilbo's life were spent writing a racist screed, ''Take Your Choice: Separation or Mongrelization'', where he promoted fearmongering of "race-mixing" and called for the repatriation of black Americans to [[West Africa]]. (a relocation bill he sponsored in the Senate in 1938 had failed) Never having repudiated his lifelong legacy of white supremacist hatred, Bilbo remained a figurehead for segregationists in the South long after his death.