A Segregationist’s Legacy Back in the Conversation

WASHINGTON — The names of three men who once dominated the Senate’s halls of power are lettered in gold onto each limestone front of the stately Senate office buildings just across from the Capitol — honorifics reserved for an elite few.

There is the building named after Philip Hart, D-Mich., who was known as “the conscience of the Senate.” Connected to it is a second building named after Everett Dirksen, R-Ill., a key player in the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Standing alone is the Russell building, a telling divide for the structure’s namesake, Richard B. Russell Jr.

While Dirksen famously broke the Southern filibuster of the Civil Rights Act, allowing the landmark anti-discrimination legislation to pass, Russell of Georgia, a towering New Deal Democrat whose Senate career spanned four decades, led the filibuster that almost killed the bill, a show of defiance that underscored his strident support of racial segregation and white supremacy.

“We will resist to the bitter end,” Russell once told the Senate, according to the book “To End All Segregation” by Robert D. Loevy, “any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our states.”

The Senate, spurred by Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic leader, is now weighing whether it should rechristen the building to honor Sen. John McCain, who died Saturday. The calls tap into the paradoxes of the man whose name would be erased, an ardent New Dealer who helped start the free school lunch program, bolstered national defense and investigated the firing of Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the assassination of John F. Kennedy — and used the august Senate chamber to press the white supremacist’s cause.

“As one who was born and reared in the atmosphere of the Old South with six generations of my forebears now resting beneath Southern soil,” Russell wrote, “I am willing to go as far and make as great a sacrifice to preserve and insure white supremacy in the social, economic, and political life of our state as any man who lives within her borders.”

The push for a name change in McCain’s honor is only the latest in a wider, so far fruitless effort to rid the Capitol of the symbols of the nation’s Confederate and Jim Crow past. The movement nationally to take down Confederate statues has incited protests and pride; so too in the Capitol have demands for the removal of paintings and statues of leaders who endorsed segregation and slavery — and pursued civil war.

A number of Republicans, including the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, appeared ready on Tuesday to dodge the issue. McConnell announced he would appoint a bipartisan group of senators to hash over ways to honor McCain, suggesting naming the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing room after him and commissioning a portrait for the ornate Senate Reception Room, just off the Senate chamber.

“I’m glad we’ll be able to form this gang to ensure that a suitable, lasting tribute becomes a reality,” he said.

The senators from Georgia, both Republicans, are split on the issue. Sen. Johnny Isakson told reporters on Tuesday he supported the renaming, while Sen. David Perdue defended Russell as a “giant of the Senate” and said “this renaming thing because of one issue is somewhat troubling.”

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., one of McCain’s closest friends, said he would defer to the senator’s widow, Cindy McCain, on the matter, but added that he would “name the Capitol” after the senator if he could.

Such suggestions hint that Russell’s nameplate is safe for now. And he certainly has his backers.

“Richard Russell was from the South and, I’m sure, not perfect like George Washington and everyone else in his day,” said Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., who, like Russell, was once a conservative Democrat. “But he was a well-respected senator.”

Twice a presidential candidate, Russell was known for the ascendant political trajectory he charted from a young age. Elected to Georgia’s House of Representatives in 1921 at the age of 23, followed by a stint as the youngest ever governor of the state, Russell closed out his staggering career in the Senate, where he established himself as a venerable figure.

“He was almost universally regarded as being the most powerful member of the Senate,” said Charles Bullock, the Richard B. Russell chair of political science at the University of Georgia. “He was the prototype of an insider powerful senator, a mover and shaker.” The Russell Senate Building was named after him in 1972, a year after his death, at the suggestion of Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., who had joined Russell’s filibuster before becoming an advocate of civil rights. Byrd proposed naming the two buildings — then known as the new and old Senate office buildings — after Russell and Dirksen, both of whom had recently died.

Russell’s name still has resonance for some in the Capitol. Perdue advised reporters that any renaming of the building should be looked at “judiciously.”

But Russell’s legacy is marked by his deeply rooted belief in racial segregation in the name of maintaining the social order of “the Old South.” When his Senate seat was challenged in 1936, according to documents housed in his namesake library at the University of Georgia, he appealed to his constituents by arguing that, “this is a white man’s country, yes, and we are going to keep it that way.”

He was among a group of senators who successfully filibustered an anti-lynching bill shortly thereafter and, as the civil rights movement emerged in the 1960s, tried to defeat the Civil Rights Act with the same procedure. Later in his life, the senator toned down his remarks and endorsed a “separate but equal” doctrine.

This week in the Senate, the proposal to rename the building in honor of McCain has picked up some bipartisan support, with Sen. Jeff Flake, McCain’s fellow Republican senator from Arizona, offering to be a co-sponsor of the bill.

“Russell is someone who was obviously a huge figure, but it is an era that has gone by. We are in a new era now,” Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., told reporters on Monday. “We were asked very quickly about it, and I think it’s a great idea.” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., said Monday renaming the building after McCain “is something I could see myself supporting,” while Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., took a cooler tone, saying he was “open to discussions.” Booker and Scott are among the three black senators.

Russell’s nephew, John Russell of Georgia, a retired lawyer, has pushed back entirely on Schumer’s suggestion.

“To be judged by a standard of perfection is just not fair,” he told a news outlet based in Georgia. “He benefited our nation, and especially the South, a great deal.”