Clifford Davis (November 18, 1897 – June 8, 1970) was a Democratic U.S. Representative from

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

from 1940 to 1965.

Early life

Davis was born on November 18, 1897, in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, moving to Memphis with his parents in 1911. There he completed the

high school A secondary school, high school, or senior school, is an institution that provides secondary education. Some secondary schools provide both ''lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper secondary education'' (ages 14 to 18), i.e., ...

curriculum of the public schools, and in 1918 he completed

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at the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (Epithet, byname Ole Miss) is a Public university, public research university in University, near Oxford, Mississippi, United States, with a University of Mississippi Medical Center, medical center in Jackson, Miss ...

. In 1918 he was admitted to the Tennessee bar.

Public service

In 1923, Davis became a city

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in Memphis, serving in this post until 1927. From 1928 until 1940, Davis served as

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and Commissioner of Public Safety. He became a close associate of Memphis political "boss" E. H. Crump. Davis was a leader of the

Ku Klux Klan The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to KKK or Klan, is an American Protestant-led Christian terrorism, Christian extremist, white supremacist, Right-wing terrorism, far-right hate group. It was founded in 1865 during Reconstruction era, ...

. The result was relatively unquestioned violence against black residents of Memphis.

Congress

In 1940, the seat for the 10th Congressional District, which included Memphis, came open after three-term incumbent Clift Chandler was elected mayor of Memphis. Crump arranged for his colleague Davis to receive the Democratic nomination for the post. In those days, the Democratic nomination was tantamount to election in most of Tennessee (except for heavily Republican

East Tennessee East Tennessee is one of the three Grand Divisions of Tennessee defined in state law. Geographically and socioculturally distinct, it comprises approximately the eastern third of the U.S. state of Tennessee. East Tennessee consists of 33 coun ...

). Davis won the special election and took office on February 15, 1940. Davis was elected to a full term in November of that year and was reelected eleven times. His district was renumbered as the 9th District after Tennessee lost a district in the 1950 census. Crump died in 1954, but many of his supporters remained in office for years afterwards. In fact, Davis was re-elected five times after Crump's death. During this time, Davis served as chairman of the House Special Committee on Campaign Expenditures, a group which was charged with attempting to find a legal way to control the influence of money on

politics Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

and looked into the beginning of what became, many years later, became the system of campaign finance reform that started to be implemented after the

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. Davis was one of five Representatives shot on March 1, 1954, when four Puerto Rican nationalists opened fire from the visitors' balcony into the chamber of the United States House of Representatives. Davis was shot in the leg, but was not seriously wounded. He was a signatory to the 1956

Southern Manifesto The Declaration of Constitutional Principles (known informally as the Southern Manifesto) was a document written in February and March 1956, during the 84th United States Congress, in opposition to racial integration of public places. The manife ...

that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in ''

Brown v. Board of Education ''Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka'', 347 U.S. 483 (1954), was a landmark decision of the United States Supreme Court that ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the ...

''.

Defeat

The Memphis area became much friendlier to Republicans in the 1960s, in part due to a massive crossover of white voters from the Democrats. As evidence of this growing influence, Davis barely held onto his seat in 1962, defeating his Republican challenger, former city councilman Robert James, by only 1,200 votes. This was particularly shocking considering that he had been unopposed for reelection two years earlier. In 1964, Davis lost the August Democratic

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to Shelby County legislator George W. Grider, a retired

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officer and fellow attorney. Unlike Davis, Grider had no past ties to the Crump machine. Davis did not return to Memphis full-time, but maintained a residence in

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

where he resumed the practice of law until his death. Davis died on June 8, 1970, in Washington, D.C. He was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis.

Legacy

The Clifford Davis Federal Building in Memphis was named after him. It was designated as the "Clifford Davis and Odell Horton Federal Building." On December 9, 2021, the U.S. Senate voted to remove Clifford Davis' name from the Federal Building in Memphis due to his ties to the Ku Klux Klan.

References

Sources

, - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Davis, Clifford 1897 births 1970 deaths 20th-century American lawyers American Ku Klux Klan members American shooting survivors Democratic Party members of the United States House of Representatives from Tennessee People from Hazlehurst, Mississippi Politicians from Memphis, Tennessee Tennessee lawyers University of Mississippi School of Law alumni Signatories of the Southern Manifesto 20th-century members of the United States House of Representatives