Atlanta Daily World

Bilbo Would Atom Bomb State Negro Leaders

OKOLONA, Miss.- (Special) Senator Theo G. Bilbo, speaking here Monday night in his campaign for re-election to the United States Senate said, "The leader or leaders of the Mississippi Progressive Voters League, composed of a number of politically ambitious Negroes who have challenged the right of anyone to prevent them from voting, should be atomically bombed and exterminated from the face of the earth."

Presented as the crusading champion of Southern customs and defender of the ideals of the South, Bilbo branded socialism, communism and mongrelization as the greatest, most damnable undermining forces of evil today that would destroy the white race, white civilization and the white man's scheme of government."

In a speech earlier in the day at Iuka, Bilbo said, "Our Negro troubles today are stemming from the fountain of outside influences that profit from strife within our borders Stating in his speech here that at least one of his opponents says that there is no race question in Mississippi today, Bilbo said, "I tell you we are living on a volcano that may erupt at any hour. I tell you there is one of the most destructive drives on against the principles of the South we have known since the carpetbagger days of the Civil War"

Maintaining that the solution of the race problem is the continued separation of the races and absolute taboo against social and political equality Bilbo added that anyone who coddles, encourages, or otherwise tends to influence the Negro to vote in a white primary "should be horse-whipped, tarred and feathered and chased out of the state."