John E. Rankin

John Rankin co-wrote the Tennessee Valley Authority bill, expecting most of its benefits to go to white Southerners. He was the main House sponsor of the G.I. Bill and insisted on state-level administration, which let Southern states keep discriminating against Black veterans, and he sought to keep VA hospitals segregated. He opposed anti-lynching and civil rights bills, defended poll taxes, and after the Port Chicago disaster cut the payment to Black sailors' families. He often joined racism to attacks on Jews, and political scientist William Strickland called him an equal opportunity bigot. He lost his seat in 1952.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tupelo National Battlefield — 1.5 mi
  A one-acre park on Main Street marking the July 1864 battle of Tupelo, a Union victory that kept Nathan Bedford Forrest away from Sherman's supply line, with Black soldiers among the defenders.
• Elvis Presley Birthplace — 1.7 mi
  The two-room house in East Tupelo where Elvis Presley was born in 1935, with a museum and the church building the family attended, set near the vanished Black neighborhoods where he first heard the blues.
• Chickasaw Village Site — 2.1 mi
  A Chickasaw village on a remnant of the Black Belt Prairie beside the Natchez Trace Parkway, with house outlines marked on the ground and signs that speak in Chickasaw voices.
• Natchez Trace Parkway Visitor Center — 5.0 mi
  The parkway's headquarters and official visitor center near Tupelo, with a film, a small museum of the Old Trace and the surviving New Deal houses of the Tupelo Homesteads.

More markers nearby

• Shake Rag — 0.7 mi
• Battle of Ackia — 1.0 mi
• Elvis Country — 1.7 mi
• Elvis Presley — 1.7 mi