William M. Colmer

Who was William M. Colmer?

William Meyers Colmer was a Mississippi politician.

Colmer was born in Moss Point, Mississippi, and attended Millsaps College. He served in the military during World War I.

Colmer was elected Jackson County attorney in 1921, becoming district attorney in 1928.

In 1932, Colmer was elected to the House of Representatives as a Democrat from Mississippi's 6th District, located on the Gulf Coast. He was reelected 19 times. His district was renumbered the 5th after the 1960 Census, when Mississippi's declining population cost it a congressional seat.

Originally elected as a supporter of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal, Colmer became increasingly conservative as the years passed. He became disenchanted as the national Democratic Party began to support the African-American Civil Rights Movement. After the Brown v. Board of Education decision by the United States Supreme Court, ruling that public school segregation was unconstitutional, Colmer helped to get Southern Democrat congressmen to sign the "Southern Manifesto" declaring their resistance.

Colmer endorsed the Republican Party candidates Richard Nixon for president in 1960, 1968 and 1972, and Barry Goldwater in 1964.