Jimmy Swan

James Eldon Swan (November 18, 1912 – 29 October 1995) was an American country musician and later, a segregationist political candidate.

Early life

James Edgar Swan was born on November 18, 1912, in the Sand Hill area of Cullman County, Alabama. After his father left the family, Swan moved with his mother to Birmingham in 1922.

At age 15, he won a talent show at an Alabama radio station. He married at age 17 with Grace Armour, a beauty queen, and quickly had three children, and was unable to put together a band until the beginning of the 1940s, due to him having to provide for his family. He ran on a White supremacy platform, wearing a white suit to stress his political program. His campaign bodyguard Pat Massengale was a member of the Knights of the Green Forrest, a Ku Klux Klan organization.

Swan supported school segregation and the creation of "FREE, private, SEGREGATED SCHOOLS for every white child in the State of Mississippi" in the first twelve months of his term, or else he would resign and publicly apologize, and called to save Mississippi "from the moral degeneracy of total mass integration that Washington has decreed for our children this fall", when schools were to be integrated by the HEW.

He supported White supremacy.

He managed to attract segregationists who disagreed with how Ross Barnett managed the Ole Miss riot of 1962, finding him too moderate.

Although he somewhat tried to soften his rhetoric, he still praised Theodore Bilbo, brandishing in public his book Take Your Choice: Separation Or Mongrelization.

Discography Year Title Record label 1952 Juke Joint Mama / I Had A Dream Trumpet Records 1952 Triflin’ On Me / I Love You Too Much Trumpet Records 1953 The Last Letter / The Little Church MGM Records 1953 Losers Weepers / Mark Of Shame Trumpet Records 1954 Lonesome Daddy Blues / One More Time Trumpet Records 1955 Frost On My Roof / It’s Your Turn To Cry MGM Records 1956 Hey, Baby Baby / Why Did You Change Your Mind? MGM Records 1956 Country Cattin’ / The Way That You’re Living MGM Records 1957 Lonesome Man / Good and Lonesome MGM Records 1960 No One Loves A Broken Heart / Don’t Conceal Your Wedding Ring Decca Records 1965 Honky Tonkin’ / I Love You Too Much JB Records 1965 Rattlesnake Daddy / It Takes A Lonesome Man JB Records 1966 Walkin’ My Dog / Asleep In The Deep JB Records 1968 Good and Lonesome / Why Did You Change Your Mind? Big Howdy Records

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