Jack Edwards

Who is Jack Edwards?

William Jackson "Jack" Edwards is a former U.S. Republican politician, who represented Alabama in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1965 until 1985.

Edwards was born in Birmingham, Alabama, but eventually moved to Point Clear, a suburb of Mobile and opened a law practice there. He was active in the Republican Party in the days when it barely existed in Alabama. His great-great grandfather, William F. Aldrich, had been the last Republican congressman from the state, serving from 1897 to 1901.

Edwards was first elected to Congress in 1964, one of five Republicans elected to the House from Alabama amid Barry Goldwater's sweep of the state in that year's presidential election. He represented the state's 1st District, based in Mobile. The seat had been left vacant when 28-year incumbent Frank Boykin was the state's only congressman not returned in the 1962 at-large election. He defeated Democrat John Tyson, Sr. by nineteen points. This seemed unusual on paper, since most of the 1st's living residents had never been represented by a Republican before. However, southwest Alabama had been one of the first regions of the state where old-line Democrats started switching parties in large numbers during the 1960s—a trend that only accelerated with the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Edwards received long coattails from Barry Goldwater, who carried the 1st by over 70 percent of the vote. He was reelected nine times, never facing serious opposition in what rapidly turned into one of the most Republican districts in the South.