:Pork Chop Gang

{{Short description|Group of North Floridian Democratic legislators}}

File:Group portrait of the Pork Chop Gang during the 1956 special session of the Florida Senate.jpg

The Pork Chop Gang was a group of 20 Democratic Party legislators from rural areas of North Florida who worked together to dominate the Florida legislature, especially to maintain segregation and conserve the disproportionate political power of mostly rural northern Florida. The origins of the name are obscure, referring either to a purported divide in the state's cuisine (pork supposedly being preferred in the north and lamb being preferred in the south) or to the legislative pork that the members of the Gang were allegedly awarding themselves.{{cite book

|first=Seth

|last=Weitz

|title=Bourbon, Pork Chops, and Red Peppers: Political Immorality in Florida, 1945–1968

|publisher=Ph.D. dissertation, Florida State University

|date=March 16, 2007

|url=https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu%3A175753

|accessdate=February 10, 2021

|archive-date=June 6, 2021

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210606001609/https://fsu.digital.flvc.org/islandora/object/fsu:175753

|url-status=live

}} They were active primarily from the 1930s to the 1960s, although the final "nail in their coffin" was in 1977.{{cite news

|title=The final nail in the 'Pork Chop Gang' coffin

|newspaper=Tampa Tribune

|date=September 1, 2013

|url=http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-commentary/the-final-nail-in-the-x2018pork-chop-gangx2019-coffin-20130901/

|accessdate=July 14, 2015

|archive-date=July 15, 2015

|url-status=dead

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715200104/http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-commentary/the-final-nail-in-the-x2018pork-chop-gangx2019-coffin-20130901/

}} {{cite journal

|first=James Nathan

|last=Miller

|title=How Florida threw out the pork chop gang

|journal=National Civic Review

|volume=60

|number=7

|date=July 1971

|pages=366–380

|doi=10.1002/ncr.4100600704}} 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."{{citation

|title=The Aucilla River Hideaway of Florida's 'Pork Chop Gang'

|publisher=Florida Memory

|date=July 2, 2014

|url=http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/2014/07/02/the-aucilla-river-hideaway-of-floridas-pork-chop-gang/

|accessdate=July 14, 2015

|archive-date=July 15, 2015

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715205202/http://www.floridamemory.com/blog/2014/07/02/the-aucilla-river-hideaway-of-floridas-pork-chop-gang/

|url-status=live

}} 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. The group targeted communists and homosexuals.

File:The Aucilla River, at Nutall Rise. On right is fish camp of legislator Raeburn C. Horne.jpg at Nutall Rise by Raeburn C. Horne's fish camp]]

Membership

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:{{citation

|title=Group portrait of the Pork Chop Gang during the 1956 special session of the Senate

|publisher=Florida Memory

|date=1956

|url=https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/35657

|accessdate=July 14, 2015

|archive-date=July 15, 2015

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150715231808/https://www.floridamemory.com/items/show/35657

|url-status=live

}}

class="wikitable mw-collapsible sortable" \| Members of the Pork Chop Gang in 1956
Legislator ! Hometown
James E. "Nick" Connor \| Brooksville
L. K. Edwards Jr. \| Irvine
Irlo Bronson, Sr. \| Kissimmee
W. E. Bishop \| Lake City
H. B. Douglas \| Bonifay
William A. Shands \| Gainesville
W. Randolph Hodges \| Cedar Key
Charley Eugene 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. Graham Black \| Jasper
J. C. Getzen Jr. \| Bushnell

class="wikitable mw-collapsible sortable"

| Members of the Pork Chop Gang in 1956

Legislator

! Hometown

James E. "Nick" Connor

| Irvine

| Bonifay

| Starke

| Madison

Scott Dilworth Clarke

| Quincy

Basil Charles "Bill" Pearce

| Milton

| Jasper

Their public spokesman was Florida Senate President Charley Eugene Johns from Starke. The coalition supported racial segregation (which was practiced at Ball's St. Joe Paper Company, as it was at most companies in Florida at the time).

Activities

File:View of the Raeburn C. Horne fish camp on the Aucilla River at Nutall Rise in western Taylor County,.jpg

For nine years, the Pork Chop Gang, having failed in its investigation of alleged communism in the NAACP, devoted its efforts to identifying homosexuals in Florida universities and schools. "By 1963, more than 39 college professors and deans had been dismissed from their positions at the three state universities, and 71 teaching certificates were revoked."{{cite news

|first=Stephen

|last=Dare

|title=Rise of The Pork Chop Gang. Conservative Racist Control from the 30s to the 60s

|newspaper=Metro Jacksonville

|date=July 31, 2010

|url=http://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,9316.msg168098.html?PHPSESSID=7dae6163af1afcbe22481c432a9bccc8#msg168098

|access-date=June 2, 2016

|archive-date=March 22, 2021

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210322213606/https://www.metrojacksonville.com/forum/index.php/topic,9316.msg168098.html?PHPSESSID=7dae6163af1afcbe22481c432a9bccc8#msg168098

|url-status=live

}} See Homosexuality and Citizenship in Florida, a report prepared by the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee, popularly called the Johns Committee, since it was Johns' legislative project (to get the committee set up) and he was its chair.

Their downfall was the Constitution of 1968, which ended decades of malapportionment that favored rural north Florida over more populated central and south Florida,{{cite book

|first=H. D.

|last=Price

|chapter=The Negro and the Legislature

|pages=103–106

|title=The Negro and Southern Politics. A Chapter of Florida History

|orig-date=1957

|location=Westport, Connecticut

|publisher=Greenwood Press

|date=1973

|isbn=0837168244}} and eliminated mandatory school segregation. However, it took a new state constitution to get them out.{{cite news

|author=ABC Television News

|title=The Last Standing Porkchopper

|date=March 16, 2015

|url=http://www.flpoliticalcommentary.com/2015/03/16/abc-television-news-on-the-last-standing-porkchopper/

|accessdate=July 14, 2015

|archive-date=July 16, 2015

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150716005144/http://www.flpoliticalcommentary.com/2015/03/16/abc-television-news-on-the-last-standing-porkchopper/

|url-status=dead

}}

Professor Judith Poucher called the Johns Committee "Florida's version of McCarthyism".{{Cite book|url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvx075bh|title=Challenging the Johns Committee's Assault on Civil Liberties|author=Poucher, Judith G.|year=2014|publisher=University Press of Florida |jstor=j.ctvx075bh |isbn=9780813049939 }}

:Pork Chop Gang

Membership

Activities

See also

References

Further reading