Earnest Sevier Cox

Who was Earnest Sevier Cox?

Earnest Sevier Cox was an American author, White Supremacist activist and segregationist.

First a Methodist preacher and Vanderbilt student, between 1910 and 1914 he traveled Africa and South America studying interracial relations.

In 1922 Cox and composer John Powell founded the Anglo-Saxon Clubs of America, based on Madison Grant's Nordicist ideology, in Richmond, Virginia. The group lobbied in favor of Anti-miscegenation laws. They aided the passing of Virginia’s Racial Integrity Act of 1924 which was overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 1967, in Loving v. Virginia. He also worked with Senator Theodore Gilmore Bilbo to propose a bill providing funds for "repatriation" of African Americans to Africa.

In 1923 he published the book White America. The book argued that race mixing would result in the downfall of "White civilization". Unable to find a publisher he paid for first printing himself. It was later reissued funded by Wickliffe Draper. He lobbied in favor of and against the ending of Racial segregation in the United States, and against the decision of Brown vs. Board of Education. He also wrote in favor of the eugenics movement. He collaborated extensively with white supremacists such as Madison Grant, Willis Carto and Carleton Putnam. Cox was also a member of the British based group the Northern League founded by Roger Pearson. His collected papers are hosted at the archive of Duke University.