Perry Wilbon Howard

Perry Wilbon Howard II (June 14, 1877 – February 1, 1961), also known as Perry Wilbon Howard, Jr., He was appointed in 1923 as United States Special Assistant to the Attorney General under Warren G. Harding, serving also under Calvin Coolidge, and into Herbert Hoover's administration, resigning in 1928.

Howard was twice tried on corruption-related charges stemming from his effective control over Republican patronage in Mississippi; he was black but was acquitted both times by all-white juries that feared the threat of white Republicans more than they worried about patronage issues. He continued to have a successful career as partner and head of the top black law firm in Washington, DC. and his speeches often drew more support from whites than blacks. During the time, these stances tended to emphasize economic self-improvement and better race relations as opposed to pushing for immediate, radical changes.

Biography Howard was born in Ebenezer in Holmes County in central Mississippi on June 14, 1877, as the first son of Sallie and Perry Wilbon Howard, who were enslaved before the Civil War. Highly respected in the community, they bought their own farm land and sent all their seven sons to college.

Howard graduated from the historically black Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi and then studied mathematics at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. He studied law at Illinois College of Law in Chicago. By 1905, Howard had passed the bar, become a member of the Mississippi Bar Association, and was practicing law in the state capital of Jackson. He was among not more than two dozen black lawyers in Mississippi, the second generation of these professional men.

Howard became active in Republican Party politics despite the constraints of Mississippi life; most blacks in the state had been disenfranchised in 1890 when the white Democrats passed a new constitution with provisions that created barriers to voter registration, such as poll taxes and a literacy test. Howard served as a delegate to every Republican national convention from 1912 to 1960, the year before his death. He was chosen by Theodore Roosevelt in 1912 to second his nomination as presidential candidate. During the 1928 United States presidential election, Howard was selected by Republicans in Kansas City to lead the Mississippi GOP delegation. He also had suggested the nomination of conservative U.S. representative Hamilton Fish III for vice president, stating that the GOP ticket would thereby maintain a stronghold among the black vote in competing against Democratic nominee Alfred E. Smith. The Republican vice presidential nomination ultimately went to United States Senate Majority Leader Charles Curtis, and the Hoover/Curtis ticket defeated the Smith/Robinson ticket in the general election by a landslide.

In 1928, Howard was indicted by a federal grand jury in Mississippi on corruption charges related to purported sale of offices in Mississippi. The grand jury would have been made up of white Democrats, his political opponents; blacks had been largely disenfranchised since 1890 and, excluded as voters, were not allowed to serve on juries. Howard and other black Republican officials were tried in federal court in Jackson.

Despite opposition within Mississippi and criticism from national black leaders, Howard was pragmatic about dealing with local conditions. He held on to his position until 1956 as Republican National Committeeman from Mississippi, while working and living in the capital. He led U.S. Senator Robert A. Taft's Southern delegation at the 1952 Republican National Convention in Chicago. Taft, however, lost the party nomination to Dwight D. Eisenhower.

In 1956, the Howard forces (long called the "Blacks and Tans" for their biracial character) began to be challenged anew for control of the Mississippi state party by a white conservative faction led by Wirt Yerger, an insurance agent in Jackson.

Howard managed to survive political swings and continued to serve as the Republican National Committeeman almost until his death. He died on February 1, 1961.

Mary Booze of Mound Bayou, an all-black community in Bolivar County in northwestern Mississippi, served alongside Howard as the national Republican committeewoman from 1924 to 1948. She was the first African-American woman to sit on the RNC.