Pork Chop Gang

The Pork Chop Gang was a group of 20 conservative legislators from rural areas of north Florida, who worked together to dominate the Florida legislature, especially to maintain segregation. They have been called "Florida's version of McCarthyism". They were active from primarily from the 1930s to the 1960s, although the final "nail in their coffin" was in 1977.[1][2] The spokesperson was Senator Charley Johns. They "had become unusually powerful in the 1950s because the legislative districts of the state had not been redrawn to account for the massive growth of urban areas in earlier years".[3] The key figure in the group, coordinating their activities, although not a legislator, was industrialist Ed Ball. Their favorite haunt was the fish camp of legislator Raeburn C. Horne, at Nutall Rise, in Taylor County on the Aucilla River.[4]

The following legislators were members of the Pork Chop Gang in 1956, according to the captions on a photo of them in the state archives of Florida:

James E. "Nick" Connor, Brooksville; L.K. Edwards Jr., Irvine; Irlo O. Bronson Sr., Kissimmee; W.E. Bishop, Lake City; H.B. Douglas, Bonifay; William A. Shands, Gainesville; W. Randolph Hodges, Cedar Key; Charley E. Johns, Starke; John S. Rawls, Marianna; Philip D. Beall Jr., Pensacola; Harry O. Stratton, Callahan; F. Wilson Carraway, Tallahassee; W. Turner Davis, Madison; Scott Dilworth Clarke, Monticello; Dewey M. Johnson, Quincy; J. Edwin Baker, Umatilla; Edwin G. Fraser, Macclenny; Basil Charles "Bill" Pearce, East Palatka; Woodrow M. Melvin, Milton; J. Braham Black, Jasper; J.C. Getzen Jr., Bushnell.[5]

Their downfall was the Constitution of 1968, which ended decades of misapportionment that favored rural North Florida over more populated central and south Florida.[6] However, it took a new Constitution to get them out.[7]

Notes

  1. ↑ Unsigned, "The final nail in the 'Pork Chop Gang' coffin". The Tampa Tribune, September 1, 2013, http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-commentary/the-final-nail-in-the-x2018pork-chop-gangx2019-coffin-20130901/, retrieved July 14, 2015.
  2. ↑ James Nathan Miller, "How Florida threw out the pork chop gang", National Civic Review, vol. 60, no. 7, July, 1971, DOI: 10.1002/ncr.4100600704
  3. ↑ "The Aucilla River Hideaway of Florida’s 'Pork Chop Gang'", Florida Memory Blog (State Library & Archives of Florida), July 2, 2014, http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/2014/07/02/the-aucilla-river-hideaway-of-floridas-pork-chop-gang/, retrieved July 14, 2015.
  4. ↑ "The Aucilla River Hideaway of Florida’s 'Pork Chop Gang'", Florida Memory Blog (State Library & Archives of Florida), July 2, 2014, http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/2014/07/02/the-aucilla-river-hideaway-of-floridas-pork-chop-gang/, retrieved July 14, 2015.
  5. ↑ "Group portrait of the Pork Chop Gang during the 1956 special session of the Senate", Florida Memory (State Archives & Library of Florida), https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/35657, retrieved July 14, 2015.
  6. ↑ See H. D. Price, "The Negro and the Legislature”, pp. 103-106 of his The Negro and Southern Politics. A Chapter of Florida History, New York University Press, 1957, rpt. Westport, Connecticut, Greenwood Press, 1973, ISBN 0837168244.
  7. ↑ ABC Television News, “The Last Standing Porkchopper”, March 16, 2015, http://www.flpoliticalcommentary.com/2015/03/16/abc-television-news-on-the-last-standing-porkchopper/, consulted 14 July 2015.
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