Walter Sillers Jr.

Walter Sillers Jr. (April 13, 1888 – September 24, 1966) was an American lawyer, politician, landowner, and white supremacist.[1] A legislative leader from Mississippi, he served as the 56th Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives. An outspoken white nationalist, Sillers has been referred to as one of the most racist political leaders in Mississippi's history. He was one of the wealthiest people to have ever served in the Mississippi legislature. He served on the Mississippi Sovereignty Commission,[2] a state agency established to combat integration and civil rights organizing.

Walter Sillers Jr.
56th Speaker of the Mississippi House of Representatives
In office
January 4, 1944 – September 24, 1966
Preceded bySam Lumpkin
Succeeded byJohn Junkin
Member of the
Mississippi House of Representatives
from Bolivar County
In office
January 4, 1916 – September 24, 1966
Preceded byGeorge Shelby
Succeeded byJohn L. Pearson
Personal details
Born(1888-04-13)April 13, 1888
Rosedale, Mississippi, U.S.
DiedSeptember 24, 1966(1966-09-24) (aged 78)
Jackson, Mississippi, U.S.
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse
Lena Roberts
​
(m. 1911)​
Parent(s)Walter Sillers
Florence Warfield
EducationSt. Andrew's-Sewanee School
Alma materUniversity of Mississippi

Background

Sillers was born in Rosedale, Mississippi to Walter Sillers, Sr. and Florence Warfield Sillers.[3][1] He was a brother of the columnist and segregationist Florence Sillers Ogden.[4] A member of a prominent Mississippi Delta family, his paternal grandparents were planters and slaveholders in Rosedale. His maternal grandfather was Colonel Elisha Warfield, a planter and Confederate military officer who served in the 2nd Arkansas Infantry Regiment. He was a great-great grandson of Elisha Warfield and a great-grandnephew of Mary Jane Warfield Clay.[5] He was a grandnephew of Charles Clark, a Confederate general who served as Governor of Mississippi.[6]

Sillers grew up in Rosedale and was raised in the Methodist Episcopal Church.[6] He lived with his family in a large Victorian-style mansion on Levee Street.[7] He was educated at St. Andrew's-Sewanee School, an Episcopal boarding school in Sewanee, Tennessee.[6] He attended the University of Mississippi and was a member of St. Anthony Hall.[1]

Career

Sillers was a lawyer and a member of the American Bar Association.[1] He served in the Mississippi House of Representatives from 1916–1966.[6] He served as Speaker of that body from January 4, 1944 until his death on September 24, 1966.[8] He was a delegate to the Democratic National Conventions of 1916, 1924, 1944, 1948, 1952, and 1956.[9][7]

He has been called "one of the most racist political leaders in Mississippi's history."[10]

He inherited multiple plantations from his father and held interests in banks, oil companies, and other businesses in Mississippi.[6] Due to his inheritance and business ventures, he was one of the wealthiest people to have ever served in the Mississippi legislature.[6]

Naming and controversy

Given Sillers' preeminence in the state legislature, several public buildings were named for him during his fifty years in office. The fine arts complex was named after him at the historically black Mississippi Valley State University. The Walter Sillers State Office Building, a government high-rise in Jackson, Mississippi is also named after him.[7]

Delta State University's Walter Sillers Coliseum, built in 1960 with proceeds from a sale of bonds which Sillers opposed,[11] has also come under scrutiny, with public calls for the building to be named after Lusia Harris instead,[12] an African American woman who led the Delta State Lady Statesmen basketball team to three consecutive national championships and became the first and only woman ever drafted into the NBA.[13]

Sillers himself, an outspoken white supremacist, advocated for the removal of the names of white namesakes from public spaces should they become integrated.[14]

Personal

On November 22, 1911, he married Lena Roberts, the daughter of longtime state senator W. B. Roberts.[1][15] He was a member of the Freemasons and the Shriners.[1] Sillers died at the age of 79 on September 24, 1966.[1] He was buried at Beulah Cemetery in Beulah, Mississippi.[1]

References
  1. Kestenbaum, Lawrence (March 10, 2021). "Delta Psi Politicians". The Political Graveyard. Retrieved 2022-03-10.
  2. https://www.crmvet.org/docs/6406_cofo_ms_leg-rpt.pdf
  3. History, Mississippi Department of Archives and (1917). The Official and Statistical Register of the State of Mississippi. Department of Archives and History.
  4. King, Ed; Watts, Trent (October 7, 2014). Ed King's Mississippi: Behind the Scenes of Freedom Summer. Univ. Press of Mississippi. ISBN 9781626743304 – via Google Books.
  5. "Warfield Family History". July 10, 2009.
  6. "DRY SEPTEMBER REVISITED" (PDF). www.mississippilawjournal.org. Retrieved 2020-07-15.
  7. "Walter Sillers and His Fifty Years Inside Mississippi Politics | Mississippi History Now". mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us. Archived from the original on 2020-10-21. Retrieved 2016-06-28.
  8. Sillers Mississippi Bluebook 2004, p. 145
  9. "Sillers Is Taken By Death," Biloxi Daily Herald, September 24, 1966, pp. 1–2
  10. Loewen, James W. (1999). Lies Across America : what our historic sites get wrong. The New Press. p. 236. ISBN 1565843444.
  11. Sillers, Walter. "Letter, Walter Sillers Jr. to Governor Hugh L. White; October 15, 1959". Letter, Walter Sillers Jr. to Governor Hugh L. White; October 15, 1959. Delta State University. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  12. "Friends of Lucy Harris". Friends of Lucy Harris. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  13. Proudfoot, Ben (2023-01-12). "Opinion | She Made History as a Black Basketball Star. Why Won't Her College Name Its Arena for Her?". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2023-01-12.
  14. Sillers, Walter. "Letter, Walter Sillers Jr. to Governor J.P. Coleman; May 3, 1957". Letter, Walter Sillers Jr. to Governor J.P. Coleman; May 3, 1957. Delta State University. Retrieved May 19, 2022.
  15. "Senator Roberts, State Leader dies in Rosedale Home". Newspapers.com. Retrieved 2023-05-14.
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