John Milliken Parker was born on March 16, 1863 in Bethel Church, Bolivar County, Mississippi, United States. He was the eldest of six children of John Milliken and Roberta (Buckner) Parker. In 1871 the family moved to New Orleans, where the elder Parker engaged in business as a broker and cotton factor.
John Milliken Parker attended public schools there and Mount Pleasant Academy in Sing Sing (later Ossining), New York, from which he graduated in 1881.
John Milliken Parker entered business with his father, eventually becoming president of the firm of John M. Parker and Company and serving as president of the New Orleans Board of Trade (1893), the New Orleans Cotton Exchange (1897 - 1898), and the Southern Commercial Congress (1908 - 1911). In 1891 Parker was one of sixty-one citizens who signed the call for a mass meeting, summoned "to take steps to remedy the failure of justice, " after eleven Italians allegedly associated with the Mafia and charged with the murder of the New Orleans chief of police had been acquitted. The eleven prisoners were seized and killed, with diplomatic repercussions.
Early in 1912, Parker took a leading role in the Good Government League, which secured the election of a reform candidate for governor. Later that year, however, he abandoned this movement within the Democratic party to join in the call for the Progressive convention which nominated Theodore Roosevelt for president. In 1916 he ran on the Progressive ticket for governor, winning 48, 068 votes to 80, 801 for Ruffin G. Pleasant, the Democratic candidate, a surprisingly good showing. Active in the party's national councils, Parker received the Progressive nomination for vice-president, later in 1916 and for a time carried on a futile campaign even after Theodore Roosevelt had declined the presidential nomination, but he eventually threw his support to Woodrow Wilson. During World War I he proposed to raise troops for a force to be commanded by Theodore Roosevelt, but this movement failed to win President Wilson's approval. Parker later accepted an appointment as Food Administrator for Louisiana.
In 1920 Parker became a candidate for the Democratic nomination for governor. With the support of Governor Pleasant and others who opposed the New Orleans organization headed by Mayor Martin P. Behrman, Parker charged the "ring" with responsibility for corruption, gambling, and vice and won the nomination over Col. Frank P. Stubbs, he was of course elected. After the defeat of his candidate for governor in 1924 Parker retired to his stock farm near St. Francisville, where he spent most of his remaining years pursuing his interests in agricultural experimentation and stock breeding. On several occasions, however, he came out of retirement to engage in public activities: as director of emergency flood relief in 1927, for a speaking tour on behalf of Alfred E. Smith in 1928, and to assume in 1929 the presidency of the Louisiana Constitutional League, which opposed the policies of Gov. Huey P. Long. Parker died of a stroke after a lengthy illness at his country home in Pass Christian, Mississippi, on May 20, 1939 and was buried in Metarie Cemetery, New Orleans.
John Milliken Parkeк was the 37th Governor of Louisiana (1920 – 1924). His most important achievements of John Milliken Parker's administration as governor were the calling of a constitutional convention in 1921, the establishment of a special severance tax for the support of the Louisiana State University, thereby making possible its removal to a new campus and preparing the way for its subsequent growth, and the establishment of a state highway commission and the levying of a gasoline tax for the support of good roads. Other his accomplishments included: a revised workmen's compensation law, a law regulating sales of securities, administrative reforms, laws for conservation and reforestation, legislation weakening the position of the New Orleans "ring, " and the use of the militia to suppress disorders arising from Ku Klux Klan violence in Morehouse Parish.
Johnn Milliken Parker joined the Progressive Party in 1912, then he became a member of Democraric party.
On January 11, 1888, John Milliken Parker married Cecile Airey of New Orleans. They had four children: John Milliken, Thomas Airey, Virginia, and Saidie.
