J. William Fulbright

James William Fulbright, usually known as J. William Fulbright (1905-1995), was a Democratic member of the United States Senate from Arkansas, whose tenure extended from 1945 to 1975. Fulbright was an ardent segregationist and mentor to President Bill Clinton. He is known for the Fulbright Program of merit-based international student exchanges.

Fulbright was the president of the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville and a member of the United States House of Representatives from Arkansa's 3rd congressional district.

U.S. Senate

He was elected to the Senate in 1944, unseating incumbent Hattie Carraway, the first woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. Fulbright became a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1949, and served as chairman from 1959 to 1974–the longest-serving chair in that committee's history.

Civil rights

Fulbright signed the Southern Manifesto in opposition of the Supreme Court's historic 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision which declared that "separate but equal" in segregating black and white children in schools was illegal and that all schools must be integrated. With other southern Democrats, Fulbright filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as well as voting against the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

Cold War communism

In 1965, Fulbright became a major intraparty critic of U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson over the Vietnam War though he had voted for the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution. Ironically, Fulbright's old ally, Adlai Stevenson, was a Vietnam War supporter through his position in the Johnson administration as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Post-Senate

After five terms, Fulbright was handily unseated in the 1974 Democratic senatorial primary by then Governor Dale Bumpers of Charleston in Franklin County in western Arkansas. Both Fulbright and Bumpers were admirers of Adlai Stevenson and close friends of U.S. President Bill Clinton. Clinton once worked on Fulbright's staff, and Bumpers gave an impassioned speech in 1999, after he had retired from the Senate, in opposition to the impeachment of Clinton.

Here’s what Bill Clinton said when he eulogized his mentor, Sen J. William Fulbright:

"We come to celebrate and give thanks for the remarkable life of J. William Fulbright, a life that changed our country and our world forever and for the better. . . . In the work he did, the words he spoke and the life he lived, Bill Fulbright stood against the 20th century’s most destructive forces and fought to advance its brightest hopes.

So spoke President William J. Clinton in 1995 of a man who was among the 99 Democrats in Congress to sign the “Southern Manifesto” in 1956. The Southern Manifesto declared the signatories’ opposition to the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education and their commitment to segregation forever. Fulbright was also among those who filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That filibuster continued for 83 days.

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US Senator William Fulbright (of Fulbright Scholarship fame) said, "Israel controls the US Senate." [1]

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