James Byrnes
James Byrnes was a politician from South Carolina. During his career he served at every branch of the federal government - the executive branch (as Secretary of State), the legislative branch (in both houses of Congress) and the judicial branch as a Supreme Court Associate Justice.
| James Byrnes | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| |||
| Former Associate Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court From: July 8, 1941 – October 3, 1942 | |||
| Nominator | Franklin Roosevelt | ||
| Predecessor | James McReynolds | ||
| Successor | Wiley Blount Rutledge | ||
| 104th Governor of South Carolina From: January 16, 1951 – January 18, 1955 | |||
| Predecessor | Strom Thurmond | ||
| Successor | George Bell Timmerman, Jr. | ||
| 49th United States Secretary of State From: July 3, 1945 – January 21, 1947 | |||
| President | Harry Truman | ||
| Predecessor | Edward Stettinius, Jr. | ||
| Successor | George Marshall | ||
| U.S. Senator from South Carolina From: April 5, 1931 – July 8, 1941 | |||
| Predecessor | Coleman L. Blease | ||
| Successor | Alva M. Lumpkin | ||
| Former U.S. Representative from South Carolina's 2nd Congressional District From: March 4, 1911 – March 4, 1925 | |||
| Predecessor | James O'H. Patterson | ||
| Successor | Butler Hare | ||
| Information | |||
| Party | Democrat | ||
| Spouse(s) | Maude Perkins Busch | ||
| Religion | Episcopalian | ||
Brynes was a confidant of Franklin Roosevelt; he resigned from the Court to become director of the Office of War Mobilization in 1943 and later Secretary of State under President Truman. Byrnes was involved in the decision to drop a nuclear bomb on Hiroshima.
Byrnes was an influential South Carolina politician and avowed segregationist who held high-level positions in state and federal government for more than four decades. As a member of the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate for more than two decades, Byrnes personally blocked a Senate investigation of a South Carolina lynching and opposed Republican anti-lynching legislation, insisting that "rape is responsible, directly and indirectly, for most of the lynching in America."
When Byrnes was nominated to the Supreme Court in 1941, the NAACP opposed his confirmation in a telegram to the White House: “If Senator Byrnes at any time in his long public career failed to take a position inimical to the human and citizenship rights of 13 million American Negro citizens, close scrutiny of his record fails to reveal it.” Byrnes was confirmed to the Court, and later held the office of Secretary of State under President Harry Truman.[1]
He remained a vocal opponent of integration throughout his term as South Carolina governor from 1951 to 1955. In his inaugural address, Byrnes proclaimed, “Whatever is necessary to continue the separation of the races in the schools of South Carolina is going to be done by the white people of the state. That is my ticket as a private citizen. It will be my ticket [as governor].”
Since his death in 1972, Byrnes has been widely recognized; a building and a professorship at the University of South Carolina bear his name, as do Byrnes Auditorium at Winthrop University, Byrnes Hall dormitory at Clemson University, and James F. Byrnes High School in Duncan, South Carolina.