William H. Murray

Common card · No. 468299

William Henry Davis Murray (November 21, 1869 – October 15, 1956) was an American educator, lawyer, and politician, who served as the first speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, a U.S. congressman from Oklahoma, and as the 9th governor of Oklahoma. He was a Southern Democratic member of the Democratic Party who opposed the New Deal and supported racial segregation. Murray started his political career with several failed runs for political office in his home state of Texas before moving to Indian Territory, where he married Mary Alice Hearrell Murray, the niece of Chickasaw Nation Governor Douglas H. Johnston. Although not American Indian, he was appointed by Johnston as the Chickasaw delegate to the 1905 Convention for the proposed State of Sequoyah, and later, he was elected as a delegate to and president of the 1906 Oklahoma Constitutional Convention for the proposed state of Oklahoma. Murray was elected as a representative and the first speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives...

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