David G. Sansing

James L. Alcorn was Mississippi’s first elected Republican governor and the namesake of Alcorn County and Alcorn State University. Alcorn…

William Allain was born on 14 February 1928 in the Adams County community of Washington. He was educated at the…

When Gov. Benjamin G. Humphreys was removed from office on 15 June 1868, Pres. Andrew Johnson appointed Adelbert Ames provisional…

Before his election to the state’s highest office, Thomas L. Bailey served twenty-four years in the Mississippi House of Representatives,…

The office of governor is the only public office Ross Barnett ever held and the only political office for which…

Although he was only five feet, two inches tall, Theodore G. Bilbo, in life as in legend, was a towering…

Gerard C. Brandon was the first native Mississippian elected the state’s governor. He also held the state’s top office longer…

Albert Gallatin Brown was Mississippi’s youngest and perhaps most popular antebellum governor. Following his reelection in 1845 by a very…

Phil Bryant was elected governor of Mississippi in the November 2011 Republican landslide. In that historic election, Republicans won all…

Not since George Poindexter (1820–22) had Mississippi had a governor with a broader range of political experience than James Plemon…

During the depths of the worst depression in American history, Martin S. Conner was inaugurated as Mississippi’s governor on 19…

Cliff Finch campaigned for governor in 1975 on the promise of more and better-paying jobs for Mississippians. To dramatize his…

Mississippi has had two state flags, and both have been closely associated with the state’s Confederate history. Mississippi and most…

In 1991, having never before held public office, Kirk Fordice was elected Mississippi’s first Republican governor in 118 years. In…

On 3 February 1851 authorities arrested Gov. John A. Quitman in Jackson and took him to New Orleans to be…

When the constitutional convention met in July 1817 to draft Mississippi’s first constitution, David Holmes was named president of the…

For five years after the Civil War, martial law and civil authority existed concurrently in Mississippi. That phenomenon created a…

When Paul Burney Johnson Jr. was inaugurated as Mississippi’s fifty-fourth governor on 21 January 1964, he became the only son…

During his unsuccessful 1931 and 1935 races for the Mississippi governorship, Paul Burney Johnson Sr. called himself the Champion of…

Although his term began on 7 January 1822, Gov. Walter Leake did not deliver his inaugural address until 24 June…

Andrew Longino was the first governor elected after the Civil War who was not a Confederate veteran, and he was…

Robert Lowry occupied the office of governor for eight years and was Mississippi’s first governor to remain in office for…

Charles Lynch is one of the few men to have held office in all three branches of state government. He…

Although Ray Mabus was the youngest governor in America at the time of his inauguration on 12 January 1988, he…

Joseph Warren Matthews was a plain and unlettered frontiersman who lacked the flair for oratory that many Mississippians expected from…

Anselm McLaurin, the oldest of eight brothers and the father of ten children, was the last Confederate veteran elected governor…

When Gov. Alexander Gallatin McNutt was inaugurated in January 1838, Mississippi was entering a period of severe economic depression that…

Known to his friends and followers as Johnny McRae of Chickasawhay, John J. McRae sailed his steamer Triumph up and…

William McWillie migrated to Mississippi from South Carolina, but unlike many antebellum migrants, he did not come during his early…

Dennis Herron Murphree served as Mississippi’s governor on two separate occasions but was never elected to the office. Murphree won…

After serving in the Mississippi State Senate from 1988 to 1996 and as lieutenant governor from 1996 to 2000, Democrat…

Shortly before Gov. Edmond F. Noel’s inauguration on 21 January 1908, several Jackson businessmen recommended the sale of the Governor’s…

John Jones Pettus served the shortest term as governor in the state’s history—five days beginning with the resignation of Henry…

A contemporary historian wrote that the history of George Poindexter’s public career is “the history of the Territory and the…

When Col. Ridgley C. Powers was discharged from the US Army in December 1865, he decided to remain in Mississippi…

John Anthony Quitman was born in Rhinebeck, New York, on 1 September 1798. His father, Frederick Quitman, a Lutheran minister,…

In 1831 Hiram Runnels lost the office of governor by the narrowest margin in Mississippi history, 247 votes. Two years…

While a student at the University of Mississippi, Lee Russell was a leader in the movement to abolish fraternities. Later,…

Abram Scott was involved in two of the three closest elections for governor in the state’s history. In 1831 he…

Following the arrest and imprisonment of Gov. Charles Clark in May 1865, Mississippi was for the third time without a…

John Marshall Stone, who was inaugurated as governor on three separate occasions and served as governor longer than any other…

Tilghman Mayfield Tucker and his first wife, Sarah F. McBee Tucker, were the first residents of the Mississippi Governor’s Mansion,…

In 1903, for the first time, the people of Mississippi nominated the candidates for all public offices, from the governor…

In the early 1970s, after the civil rights movement had brought enormous changes to the South, a group of young…

Hugh Lawson White was perhaps the wealthiest man to hold the office of governor in the state’s history, certainly in…

Although Henry Lewis Whitfield served as the state’s governor from 1924 to 1928, he is perhaps best known for his…

James Whitfield became Mississippi’s governor under unusual circumstances and served for only about six weeks. Born in Elbert County, Georgia,…

John Bell Williams’s political career took an unusual route to the office of governor. Most politicians first run for state…

For all of William Winter’s many contributions to the state of Mississippi, he will be most remembered for the Education…

When the Democratic Party nominated Harry S. Truman and adopted a strong civil rights platform in 1948, southern Democrats organized…