Ralph Yarborough

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Ralph Webster Yarborough​
United States Senator from Texas
In office April 29, 1957​ – January 3, 1971​
Preceded by	William Arvis "Dollar Bill" Blakley​
Succeeded by	Lloyd Bentsen​
Born	June 8, 1903 ​ Chandler, Henderson County Texas, USA.​
Died	January 27, 1996 (aged 92) ​ Austin, Texas​
Nationality	American​
Political party	Democrat​
Spouse(s)	Opal Catherine Warren Yarborough (1903–2002)
Children	Richard Warren Yarborough (born c. 1931)​
Alma mater	Sam Houston State Teachers College University of Texas School of Law​
Occupation	Attorney Lieutenant colonel in the United States Army in World War II
Religion	Baptist​
Military Service
Allegiance	United States
Service/branch	United States Army
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Battles/wars	World War II

Ralph Webster Yarborough (June 8, 1903 – January 27, 1996) was a Democrat politician who represented his native Texas in the United States Senate from 1957 to 1971. He was a leader of the progressive wing of his party and the only white Southern senator to vote for the final passage of all civil rights bills from 1957 to 1970, including the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.^[1]

Early life and career[edit]

Ralph Webster Yarborough was born in Chandler, Texas to Charles Richard Yarborough and Nannie Jane Spear. He attended local public schools and later the United States Military Academy, though dropped out from the latter in 1919 to become a teacher. He graduated in 1927 from the University of Texas Law School and proceeded to practice law in El Paso.

Political career[edit]

Yarborough won his Senate seat in 1957, after Senator Price Daniel, Sr. (1910–1988), left the Senate to be inaugurated as governor. He defeated a conservative, William Arvis "Dollar Bill" Blakley (1898–1976) in a Democrat primary.^[2] A few months earlier, Yarborough had very narrowly lost the 1956 gubernatorial primary runoff to Daniel.^[3] Then, he won the first of his two full terms in the upper legislative body in 1958, when he handily defeated the Republican publisher Roy Whittenburg of Amarillo in the general election.^[4] In 1964, Yarborough defeated conservative broadcaster Gordon McLendon in the primary that year^[5] and then topped George Herbert Walker Bush to claim his second full Senate term.^[6] Yarborough was close to U.S. Presidents John F. Kennedy and then Lyndon B. Johnson. In 1970, however, Yarborough, who had become a critic of the Vietnam War, lost re-nomination to former U.S. Representative Lloyd Bentsen of Houston^[7] and, earlier, McAllen. Bentsen then topped Bush,^[8] making his second consecutive unsuccessful run for the Senate, in the general election held mid-term in the administration of President Richard M. Nixon. Bentsen vacated the seat in 1993 to become United States Secretary of the Treasury under President Bill Clinton.

Yarborough's fellow senator from 1961 to 1971 was the Moderate Republican John Tower, initially elected as a strong conservative in the 1961 special Senate election. Coincidentally, Tower had defeated by some ten thousand votes William Blakely, the six-month interim senator who succeeded Lyndon Johnson, who then became Vice President. And it was Governor Price Daniel who appointed Blakely as interim senator in both 1957 and 1961.

Civil Rights Act of 1964[edit]

Some progressive historians who promote the U.S. "Party-switch" myth try to cite Yarborough's vote for the 1964 Civil Rights Act to prove that the parties supposedly re-aligned in the 60s, claiming he was a supposed "rare liberal Democrat" from the South as well as citing his fellow Texas Republican senator John Tower's opposition to the Act.^[9] This ignores the fact that a number of Southern segregationists were supportive of the liberal welfare state and that after the final Senate passage of the bill, Yarborough voted for an amendment by Albert Gore, Sr. which sought to significantly weaken the legislation.^[10][11] Furthermore, the then-conservative Tower (who later became a Moderate Republican in the 1980s), who is often cited as having been anti-civil rights, voted against the amendment.

Yarborough justified his stance on the basis that his focus was centered on education and not civil rights in regards to solely the amendment.^[12] Nevertheless, he persisted in voting for what would have gutted the Act while his colleague Sen. Tower responded:

See also[edit]

• U.S. "Party-switch myth

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Profile at the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Biography at encyclopedia.com
• Biography via Texas State Historical Association
• Profile at Find a Grave
• Obituary via The Washington Post