Paul B. Johnson Jr.

At 69 years old, Paul B. Johnson Jr. physical status not available right now. We will update Paul B. Johnson Jr.'s height, weight, eye color, hair color, build, and measurements.

Johnson became a practicing attorney in Jackson and Hattiesburg. After beginning his career, he married Dorothy Power in 1941. They had 4 children.

During World War II, Johnson served in the South Pacific with the United States Marine Corps. Upon his release from the service, Johnson wanted to enter politics. He gained an appointment as the Assistant U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Mississippi from 1948 to 1951.

As described by writer Theodore White, Johnson had, for a Southerner, a liberal early record. He supported Harry S. Truman for president in 1948 (Truman received just over ten percent of the vote in Mississippi), Adlai Stevenson in 1952. Johnson ran for governor three times: in 1947, 1951, and 1955, but was unsuccessful. In 1947, prior to his first try for the governor's mansion, he also ran for an open U.S. Senate seat, but lost.

In 1959, Johnson ran for lieutenant governor and won, serving under Governor Ross Barnett, who became a segregationist icon. Johnson played a prominent role in trying to prevent James Meredith from enrolling at Ole Miss in 1962, physically blocking (for the benefit of photographers) the federal marshals who were escorting the African-American veteran.

Although Johnson felt that state politics were ill-suited for him, he ran for governor again in 1963. He defeated former governor James P. Coleman by tying his opponent to President John F. Kennedy's civil rights legislation proposed that year. During the campaign, he asked voters to "Stand tall with Paul" against those wanting to change Mississippi's "way of life", in reference to his confrontation with federal marshals at Ole Miss.

In the general election, Johnson faced Rubel Phillips, originally from Corinth. He was the first strong Republican candidate for Mississippi governor since the end of Reconstruction in 1876, as the party was hobbled after the state passed a disfranchising constitution in 1890, effectively barring most blacks from the political system. In the 1960s, however, in contrast to Reconstruction, the Republican Party was appealing to white conservatives in the South.

Phillips, a recent Democratic state Public Service Commissioner, ran under the slogan "K.O. (knock out) the Kennedys", and tried to tie Barnett and Johnson to the national Democrats. Phillips worked to convince voters that he and GOP lieutenant governor candidate Stanford Morse, a state senator from Gulfport, represented the best hope for preserving Mississippi's traditional "way of life", while at the same time making overall progress.

Supporting Johnson's campaign were the outgoing Governor Ross Barnett and Democratic state chairman Bidwell Adam, an attorney from Gulfport and the lieutenant governor from 1928 to 1932. The Phillips-Morse ticket fell short. Phillips carried the active backing of Wirt Yerger, the first Mississippi Republican state chairman. He received 38% of the vote, indicating a strong base of later support for serious GOP state candidates. Morse polled 26% against the Democrat Carroll Gartin of Laurel, who died in office three years later.

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