James P. Coleman

Who was James P. Coleman?

James Plemon "J.P." Coleman was a politician from the state of Mississippi.

He was born in Ackerman, Mississippi. He obtained a law degree from The George Washington University Law School in 1939. As a young man, he served upon the staff of Mississippi Congressman Aaron L. Ford. In Washington, D.C., he made a name for himself by challenging and defeating another young southern congressional staffer and future president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, for Speaker of the Little Congress, a body that Johnson had dominated before Coleman's challenge. Coleman and Johnson became lifelong friends.

Returning to Mississippi, Coleman was elected District Attorney in 1940, and served until 1946, when he became judge on the state circuit court. After a stint as a justice on the Mississippi Supreme Court, Coleman was the Mississippi Attorney General from 1950 to 1956. Coleman became the Governor of Mississippi in 1956 as a moderate candidate in a campaign where, to appease the emotions of the day, he promised to uphold segregation. As governor, he befriended Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy, but set up the State Sovereignty Commission.