Hugh Lawson White (19 August 1881-20 September 1965) was the Democratic Governor of Mississippi from 21 January 1936 to 16 January 1940 (succeeding Martin Sennet Conner and preceding Paul B. Johnson Sr.) and from 22 January 1952 to 17 January 1956 (succeeding Fielding L. Wright and preceding James P. Coleman).
Biography[]
Hugh Lawson White was born in McComb, Mississippi in 1881, and he owned the J.J. White Lumber Company before serving as Mayor of Columbia from 1926 to 1936 and opening a manufacturing plant in his town to provide jobs amid the Great Depression. In 1948, he led the Southern Democrats in walking out of the Democratic National Convention in protest against Hubert Humphrey's speech on "get(ting) out of the shadow of states' rights and walk(ing) forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights", forming the Dixiecrats. During the 1950s, White opposed school desegregation and failed to convince Black community leaders to support his plan for increased funding for segregated Black schools, but he decried the murder of Emmett Till. He died in 1965.