John Jackson Sparkman (December 20, 1899 – November 16, 1985) was an American jurist and politician from the state of Alabama. A Southern Democrat, Sparkman served in the United States House of Representatives from 1937 to 1946 and the United States Senate from 1946 until 1979. He was the Democratic Party's nominee for vice president in the 1952 presidential election.
Born in Morgan County, Alabama, Sparkman established a legal practice in Huntsville, Alabama, after graduating from the University of Alabama School of Law. He won election to the House in 1936 and served as house majority whip in 1946. He left the House in 1946 after winning a special election to succeed Senator John H. Bankhead II. While in the Senate, he helped establish Marshall Space Flight Center and served as the chairman of several committees.
Sparkman served as Adlai Stevenson's running mate in the 1952 presidential election, but they were defeated by the Republican ticket of Dwight D. Eisenhower and Richard Nixon.
Known as a defender of segregation during the Civil Rights era, Sparkman voted regularly against civil rights legislation and condemned the "judicial usurpation" of the Supreme Court decision of Brown v. Board of Education, Sparkman signed the 1956 Southern Manifesto, which pledged opposition to racial integration and promised to use "all lawful means" to fight the ruling that put court power behind the integration of public institutions.
He became the longest-serving senator from Alabama in 1977, a record that was surpassed by Richard Shelby in 2019. Sparkman chose not to seek re-election in 1978 and retired from public office the following year.
Early life and education
Sparkman, a son of Whitten Joseph and Julia Mitchell (Kent) Sparkman, was born on a farm near Hartselle, in Morgan County, Alabama. He grew up in a four-room cabin with his eleven brothers and sisters. His father was a tenant farmer and doubled as the county's deputy sheriff. As a child, John Sparkman worked on his father's farm picking cotton. He was raised Methodist.
He attended a one-room elementary school in rural Morgan County, then walked every day to his high school. Sparkman graduated from Morgan County High School in 1917 and enrolled in the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. During World War I, he was a member of the Students Army Training Corps . Sparkman worked shoveling coal in the university's boiler room to help pay for his education. He worked on The Crimson White (the university's newspaper), becoming the paper's editor-in-chief, and served as his class's student-body president. Sparkman was awarded a teaching fellowship in history and political science, he became a founding member of the Gamma Alpha Chapter of Pi Kappa Alpha in 1921, and was chosen as the university's "most outstanding senior" the same year. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1921, and his Bachelor of Laws from the University of Alabama School of Law in 1923. In 1924, Sparkman earned his master's degree in history, writing his master thesis titled "The Kolb-Oates Campaign of 1894," on former Confederate colonel William C. Oates's 1894 campaign for Governor of Alabama.
Legal career
Sparkman briefly worked as a high school teacher before he was admitted to the Alabama State Bar in 1925. He commenced his practice in Huntsville. He was also an instructor at Huntsville College from 1925 to 1928. He was appointed as a U.S. Commissioner (magistrate judge) for Alabama's northern judicial district, serving from 1930 to 1931.
Sparkman was involved in many civic organizations, including serving as the district governor of the Kiwanis Club of Huntsville in 1930, and later as the president of the Huntsville Chamber of Commerce. A Freemason, he was life member of Helion Lodge#1 in Huntsville. He was also member of the Huntsville Scottish Rite bodies and a recipient of the Knight Commander Court of Honor (KCCH).