Background
Like his father, John H. Bankhead, he was elected three times to the Senate, and like his father, he died in office. He was first elected to the Senate in 1930 by defeating J. Thomas Heflin, the man who succeeded his father.
politician United States senator
Like his father, John H. Bankhead, he was elected three times to the Senate, and like his father, he died in office. He was first elected to the Senate in 1930 by defeating J. Thomas Heflin, the man who succeeded his father.
University of Alabama.
He served in the Senate from March 4, 1931, to his death on June 12, 1946. He served as chairman of the Committee on Irrigation and Reclamation. After his death, Bankhead was succeeded by George R. Swift, who was appointed to fill his seat until a successor, John Jay Sparkman, could be elected.
Bankhead is remembered as a spokesman for farmers and against civil rights for African Americans.
He was born on July 8, 1872 at the Bankhead plantation in Lamar County, Alabama. After Alabama"s grandfather clause, that disenfranchised most black voters, was declared unconstitutional, Bankhead was one of the authors of Alabama"s revised voting law that effectively kept most black voters from registering, through a series of tests and poll taxes.
In 1943, he sponsored legislation to exempt "substantially fulltime" farm workers from the draft during World World War World War II Bankhead was in third place, with 98 votes, when delegates to the 1944 Democratic National Convention were considering President Roosevelt"s running mate. On May 24, 1946, Senator Bankhead suffered a stroke while attending an evening Senate committee meeting.
Three weeks later, he died at the United States. Naval Hospital in Bethesda, Maryland.
Though Bankhead won the election by 20 points, Heflin challenged the results for over a year. Following his controversial win over Heflin in 1930, the Senator from Alabama worked at the passage of various pieces of New Deal legislation to benefit cotton farmers, including the Subsistence Homestead Acting of 1933, the Cotton Control Acting of 1934 and the parity payment amendments to the Agricultural Adjustment Acting of 1938.
