Here’s an idea, admittedly controversial, for what to do with a statue of Theodore Bilbo, Mississippi’s most famous segregationist.
Bilbo served two terms as Mississippi governor in the early 1900s and then was a U.S. senator from 1935-47, when he died of cancer. His statue, which had been on display in the state Capitol for decades, was in the news two years ago because it suddenly disappeared.
It turned out that the clerk of the Mississippi House clandestinely had the statue moved to a storage room. He said he did it, according to the Mississippi Today website, because he did not think such a divisive figure should be on display in the seat of state government.
Thankfully, no one publicly second-guessed the clerk. But now comes news that Bilbo’s statue is going to be moved from the Capitol storage room to another storage area in the basement of the Two Mississippi Museum buildings. This presents an opportunity to dig a little deeper into the mindset of segregation.
The executive director of the state Department of Archives and History said there are no plans to put Bilbo’s statue on display. This is understandable, because for many people, Bilbo’s rants are the precise words that have held back Mississippi for generations.
Bilbo despised anybody who wasn’t white enough for his liking. He routinely criticized Jews and Italians, but of course aimed his harshest words at Black people.
You need look no further to find his heart than in the book he published in 1947, the year that he died. In “Separation or Mongrelization: Take Your Choice,” he stated that the growing numbers of descendants of slaves would become a problem in America, and the country should solve it by sending these people back to their ancestral continent.
He was convinced that the white race was in jeopardy. According to a 2021 story in The Washington Post, Bilbo believed that at the 1947 rates of “interbreeding and miscegenation and intermarriage,” the white and Black races would disappear in nine generations, or 300 years.
Well, now. America and Mississippi are only one-quarter of the way into Bilbo’s 300-year prediction. There certainly are a lot more mixed marriages and mixed-race children today than there were 75 years ago. But it also is clear that the two races largely remain distinct.
It should also be mentioned that in the 1800s and during Bilbo’s time, many mixed-race children had fathers who stood up for racial segregation. (Looking at you, Sen. Strom Thurmond, 1948 Dixiecrat presidential nominee.) So even then, insistence on racial purity had its limits.
There are people today who agree with what Bilbo said and wrote. It’s a free country, and they are entitled to their “great replacement theory” opinions. The current version claims that the government wants to let more immigrants in to eliminate whites.
We live in an imperfect world. Disagreements are the norm, and for all the progress Mississippi has made in race relations, it remains a work in progress.
Which brings us back to that statue of Bilbo. Maybe the state shouldn’t hide it in a basement. Maybe we should consider displaying it in one of the Two Mississippi Museums. Not as a symbol to be honored, but to show just how wrong this ordinary-looking, bespectacled man truly was, and how little faith he had in the future of this great country.
Segregation and civil rights are ancient history to anybody under 40 years old. Some younger people may wonder what people were thinking back then. It seems like Bilbo’s statue, amplified by his writings and any available recordings, would explain that quite clearly.
Repugnant though he was, Bilbo was a key part of Mississippi history. A thorough rebuttal of his hateful beliefs would be worthwhile.
— Jack Ryan, McComb Enterprise-Journal
