Background
Russell was born in Winder, Ga. , a small town about forty miles east of Atlanta, the fourth of thirteen children. His father, Richard Brevard Russell, Sr. , was a successful lawyer and businessman, and served as chief justice of the Georgia Supreme Court from 1922 until his death in 1938. Russell's mother, Blandina ("Ina") Dillard, whose ancestors had arrived in America from England in 1660, was a schoolteacher in Athens before marrying Russell's father. Her death in 1953 was particularly saddening to Russell, a lifelong bachelor. In his words she was "the vital core" of the family and "the greatest person I have ever known. " Russell joined the Methodist church in Winder in 1907 and would remain a member his entire life.
Education
Russell attended primary school in his hometown and went on to graduate from the Seventh District Agricultural and Mechanical School in Powder Springs, Ga. , in 1914 and from Gordon Military Institute in Barnesville, Ga. , in 1915. He received a law degree from the University of Georgia in June 1918.
Career
After college Russell returned to Winder for the summer of 1918 but, feeling that it was his duty to participate in World War I, joined the U. S. Naval Reserve on September 12, shortly before he turned twenty-one and only two months before the armistice. He did not enjoy his three months active duty in Athens, Ga. , and complained in letters home about dreary manual labor. Nevertheless, his biographer notes that "he was always proud to call himself a veteran. "
Upon his return to Winder, Russell entered the practice of law with his father and began his political career. Accepting the advantages, opportunities, obligations, and expectations of his family heritage, he announced his candidacy for the Georgia House of Representatives on July 8, 1920. He won overwhelmingly and began a career of elected public service that would continue for over fifty years. Russell would prove to be effective in part because he mastered the art of parliamentary maneuvering and became a member of the establishment wherever he served. But Russell also succeeded because the voters and his fellow politicians thought him to be open, honest, and fair to those on all sides of an issue.
Russell's rise to prominence and power in Georgia politics was meteoric. Elected to the state house of representatives in 1920, he served from 1921 to 1931, being speaker from 1927 to 1931. He then was elected governor at the age of thirty-three, serving from 1931 to 1933. As governor of Georgia, Russell achieved important results in conservation and in economic development, especially in agriculture. He signed into law a far-reaching reorganization act that simplified government. He made strong appointments to the board of regents, which oversaw higher education. He not only balanced the budget but actually paid several million dollars on old unpaid appropriations. He cautiously and masterfully rode out a storm in one of his main lifelong areas of concern, agriculture, delaying without opposing a plan championed by Governor Huey P. Long of Louisiana to raise the price of cotton by reducing the production of cotton.
But an incident in 1932 foreshadowed the trouble Russell would have over the issue of civil rights, an issue that would eventually thwart his desire to assume national leadership. Robert E. Burns, an African American serving time on a Georgia chain gang, had escaped to New Jersey and written a book entitled I Am a Fugitive from a Georgia Chain Gang, condemning the Georgia prison system as inhumane. Russell asked New Jersey authorities to return Burns to Georgia. Newspapers in the North expressed outrage at Russell's request, and the governor of New Jersey refused to extradite Burns, escalating the conflict to national proportions. Governor Russell perceived the criticism as an attack on the white South, his defense of which was translated into weakness on the issue of race relations, a charge that would haunt Russell throughout his career. The Burns controversy died down, and Russell's regional popularity remained high.
In 1932, the people of Georgia elected him to the U. S. Senate as a Democrat to fill the seat of the deceased William J. Harris. He was reelected to the seat six times and served as president pro tempore of the Senate from January 3, 1969, until his death. When Russell entered the Senate, the nation was in the depths of the Great Depression. Russell felt that this crisis justified his support of the massive government intervention contained in Roosevelt's New Deal. But when future Democratic presidents tried to build on the New Deal, Russell opposed most of their proposals, from Harry S Truman's Fair Deal in the 1940's and 1950's through John F. Kennedy's New Frontier through Lyndon Johnson's Great Society in the 1960's. At the heart of Russell's opposition was his belief in personal freedom and in states' rights. In 1935, as a freshman senator, he led a filibuster against an antilynching bill. He became the leader of those southerners who fought civil rights legislation or anything that seemed too integrationist. He did not join the Dixiecrat revolt against President Truman's election in 1948, but after the election, Russell in January 1949 introduced a bill that would have provided financial incentives to African Americans to relocate from the South to other parts of the country. The bill of course failed and the nation continued to move along its tortured path toward civil rights for African Americans.
Russell later opposed the passage of mild civil rights acts in 1957 and 1960 and stronger ones in 1964, 1965, and 1968. Russell's opposition to such measures was based on his belief that Anglo-Saxon ways were superior to all others and that the white South represented American culture at its best.
Russell believed that his views were supported by history. He regarded the Reconstruction experience as definitive proof that integration would ruin both races. He had known many African Americans who did not press for equality. Russell was a firm supporter of a strong national defense and became in the 1950's the most knowledgeable and powerful congressional leader in this area. He used his powers as chairman of the Armed Services Committee from 1951 to 1969 and then as chairman of the Appropriations Committee as an institutional base to add defense installations and jobs for Georgia.
In 1951, he chaired the committee that investigated President Truman's firing of General Douglas MacArthur for insubordination during the Korean War. Russell was firm, fair, and evenhanded in the midst of a national outcry, and his refusal to sensationalize the conflict helped the nation through the crisis. Russell urged Presidents Kennedy and Johnson not to escalate American involvement in Vietnam. He campaigned unsuccessfully for the presidency. Russell maintained a rigorous work schedule that allowed for little social activity.
Though admired by many, he maintained few close relationships. His life, he often stated, was his work as a senator. He diligently studied American history, especially the Civil War, and was a daily and cover-to-cover reader of the Congressional Record. By mid-1970, Russell's respiratory problems made even slight exertions difficult. He obtained a three-wheeled motorized vehicle to help him move around. On December 8, he entered Walter Reed Army Hospital, where he died. Richard B. Russell was a man of the South and its effective leader. Yet his bid for the presidency of the United States in 1952 went down to defeat. Many said that if he had not been from the South, he would have become president. In fact, his failure to assume national leadership was due not only to his being from the South but of a besieged southern mindset during the era of civil rights that failed to understand the central paradox of the nation's history--the denial of freedom in the land of the free.
Personality
Quotes from others about the person
His biographer Gilbert Fite noted that "white supremacy and racial segregation were to him cardinal principles for good and workable human relationships. "
