>> we pledge 72 our delegates to the next president of the united states. ♪ >> all weekend, american history tv is featuring hattiesburg, mississippi. the city was founded by william cap did harris harding, a confederate and railroad builder. the city was named after the second wife of the captain, hattie. learn more about hattiesburg all

weekend here on american history tv. >> we are in special collections at the university of southern mississippi. today we are looking at the theodore bilbo papers. his collection is very large. [laughter] we have over 2500 boxes of archival material relating to theodore bilbo. his career and his life. theodore bilbo -- and this is one of his signed photos that he would distribute to fans -- was a mississippi politician in the first half of the 20th century. 's career started around 1910, when he was doing a state congressman race. by the 1930's he had been elected governor. at the time in mississippi, you cannot serve consecutive terms

as governor. he served one term into the 1920's, early 1930's, then skipped a term, then stroked another four years later. --- then served another four years later. he was elected to the u.s. senate in the mid-1930's. he served until 1946 when he was removed from the senate. after being elected for a third term because of bribery charges. and because of his views regarding race relations. there -- very well-liked within the state by poor white residents. he took advantage of the new deal project to improve the state. he helped a lot of great people. =--- a lot of rural white people . as governor of mississippi, he made the decision in the 1930's to remove all the president's

from 3 major universities in the state. the university of mississippi, mississippi state university and mississippi university for for women. he removed the presidents and replace them with people -- i think one was a real estate agent. another had just received his bachelor degree a year before.he removed all the people -- this is what was claimed -- that didn't like him. he removed professors that went against him, the president, and replaced them with his cronies. a lot of his friends that were often not qualified suddenly theeived positions in universities in the state. this particular document here is a report of the executive committee of the association of colleges, which is one of the accreditation units for

universities. they did their own investigation. the put not only the 3 schools whose presents were removed, but also southern mississippi on probation. that was something that made a lot of headlines. it hurt bilbo's career a good bit. what he was known for and what people around the country came to identify with bilbo was where his views on race relations. ,s u.s. senator, theodore bilbo one of his possible legislative ideas was the greater liberia act. this act was something that bilbo proposed to provide an opportunity for african americans to move to africa. [laughter] many: the "back to africa"

program. it was a way for bilbo to removed african-americans from everyday american life. what was unique about this plan is that he partnered with black flash lowest group. -- black nationalist group. improvementl negro association, which was marcus garvey's group, to collect signatures of people who would be willing to move to africa to start anew. one thing you will notice from this petition is that the handwriting is the same on every line. you can see, maybe someone wrote it out and copied names from a phone book. but really, we think this was the presentation copy so you could read handwritings.

african-americans supported this initiative. they felt at the time, there was no way to get equal rights in the united states. and this was across the country, not just in mississippi. they thought this was their only way to find land and create something for themselves. as part of the greater liberia act, which we have a copy of, invest. government would $15 million to secure land and transportation for anyone that wanted to move to liberia. this was 1939. thisworld war ii in play, was put on hold and forgotten. it shows just one of the ways in which bilbo tried to segregate the country.

not only was he anti-african america,n but he did not care for italians, jewish, hispanic people either, or hawaiians it would seem. we have a file, and a justice hawaii -- and it just says "hawaii" on it. it has thoughts from various people on making hawaii a state. visit written from a gentleman from west virginia. this collection has a lot of mississippi stuff, but his reach was national. he was such an outspoken person. this person writes, "how would you feel to be called white ?"ash landica is a white man's because our ancestors fought and

died for it. when our program and sisters left europe, they had no thought of making black people their. people like you and me must work harder because there are so many white americans not interested in keeping america white. in closing, i beg for the pride of our nation, do all you continue to do to keep hawaii out of the union. i am sending newspaper clippings in case you doubt my word." you can tell that this person approached bilbo because he knew that he would be sentimental and understanding of this particular person's thoughts. a copy of the response he sent to this person from west virginia. it says "i thoroughly agree about making hawaii the 49th state. .i have been opposing it along and will keep on fighting it we just do not need a site with the kind of folks that largely make up hawaii.

the master is that, too -- the mixture is too bad." beliefs, heis received a lot of pushback as well. a a lot of organizations thought to remove bilbo from the senate and prevent his election. they wrote complaining about his beliefs, not all in agreement. one particular letter. we have 3-4 letters labeled "hate letters." one of them comes with this clipping from a newspaper article. it accompanies a letter on u.s. never a station -- u.s. naval air station letterhead. it's addressed to theodore "the man" bilbo. he often referred to himself as "the man." "dear sir, we just read an

article about you. it was varying lightning, but after toding the comment, we like ask you one question, not knowing much more animals, we like to found out one thing. in the picture, which is the jackass? one in the background, or the one with the hat on?" this was sent to a popular television media guide at the time. in bilbo fashion, we have his response. one thing to point out is that on the top of this letter, someone handwrote "nasty" at the top. that gives you the tone of his letter. keep in mind this is from a u.s. senator. es,s addressed "dear jackass while in the midst of my campaign for reelection for a third term, your letter came to

my office in washington. i note with interest that you have just read a dirty lying, contemptible article published by time. let me take the time to tell you this article is a tissue of damn lies. it is written in an attempt to bring about my defeat for u.s. senate in mississippi. it goes on, calling them a bunch of names. of walterotice windshield on the letter. he calls him names often called to jewish people. he writes " i am very sorry of your low mental status. when you finish your service with the navy, i hope you have an opportunity under the g.i. b ill, which i helped pass, to go to a school to where you can learn the difference between a white mule and a jackass."

also in response to bilbo, there were other more organized campaigns. leaderdevine was a cult in the early 20th century. andelieved in integration peace and equal opportunities for everybody. lbo started an anti-bi campaign. he is posing with this gentleman, who just happens to be from mississippi. parts of his campaign ran in newspapers. another example of the campaign "weudes -- this one says sleep together in queen anne's bed." "we drink together, we take

baths together." it reinforces the quality between the races. the things that people want to know about bilbo, more race relations things. bilbo embraced the new deal programs and brought different commissions like the gaming and wildlife commission to the state. that increased roads and dealt with various legislation. programs,he new deal the ccc, he embraced to bring in new jobs. he was a man of the lower class and helped increase the quality -- of life. theodore bilbo kept getting reelected. publicityall of his that most of the time was not positive, he kept on getting

elected. people may wonder, why? in mississippi, of course only voters were white voters. he wasn't catering to an african-american audience or any other group. because most of the state was poor,and -- was rural and those that were benefiting from a lot of his programs. a lot of the state fully supported segregation. hist of these things -- personality, his interviews in a bathtub smoking a cigar. that was a lot of the appeal to bilbo and why people kept voting for him. but the end of bilbo's life he was removed from the senate because of bribery and race relations issues. he died within the next year of cancer soon after his career ended. nowadays, talking to university

groups, many people don't know who theodore bilbo was. even though theodore bilbo's legacy has fallen to the wayside, people can learn more about him by looking through his papers. controversial or not. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to hattiesburg, mississippi to learn about interest history. learn more about hattiesburg and other stops on the tour at c-span.org/citiestour. you're watching american history tv. all weekend, every weekend on c-span3.

crying for peace and light because your choices will make all the difference don't be cases or a newon job or a new issue that really stretches your boundaries. >> spend your summer abroad on real ships rather than internships and the specter of living in your parents basement is not likely to be your greatest concern. >> watch commencement speeches to the class of 2016 in their entirety. by business leaders politicians and white house officials. >> marshall university professor cap williams teaches a class

about women in life on the home front. the role of women in aiding the war effort in factories and military auxiliary units. joseph talks about the rise of women's baseball during the time including the all-american girls professional baseball league which operated from 1943 to 1954 classes about one hour and 10 prof williams: are you ready to talk about world war ii on the home front? last time you guys saw a part of the documentary called total war. i know that some of those images were probably pretty gruesome. one of the reasons i show that to you is to give you a sense of what that concept, total war means. war is never, i don't care what war we are talking about, it is never a simply -- simply about two armies fighting one another on a battlefield. it is all encompassing. i think the video probably helped to show that.