John C. Stennis

Uncommon card · No. 100238

John Cornelius Stennis (August 3, 1901 – April 23, 1995) was an American politician who served as a U.S. senator from the state of Mississippi. He was a Democrat who served in the Senate for over 41 years, becoming its most senior member for his last eight years. He retired from the Senate in 1989, and is, to date, the last Democrat to have been a U.S. senator from Mississippi. At the time of his retirement, Stennis was the last senator to have served during the presidency of Harry S. Truman. While attending law school, Stennis won a seat in the Mississippi House of Representatives, holding office from 1928 to 1932. In 1934, Stennis was the trial prosecutor in a case where three African-Americans were convicted of murder after having been violently forced by police to confess. The convictions were later overturned in 1936 by the Supreme Court which ruled that forced confessions could not be used as evidence. After serving as a prosecutor and state judge, Stennis won a special election in...

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