COLEMAN L. BLEASE
(Coleman Livingston Blease)
By 1929 the Senate was debating legislation that would allow the government to control the airwave frequencies that were used by radio stations.
In 1911 the citizens of Honea Path, SC, led by Joshua W. Ashleigh, the State Legislator representing the district and his son, the editor of the local newspaper, dismembered and lynched a Black man, Willis Jackson. Some South Carolinians were distressed and asked the Governor to initiate and investigation. See his later statement on lynching in 1930.
Defending the practice of lynching: See his earlier statement about lynching in 1911.
Coleman Livingston Blease was a South Carolina politician of the Democratic Party who served as Governor of South Carolina from 1911 to 1915, and as a United States Senator from 1925 to 1931. Blease was the political heir of Benjamin Tillman. He led a political revolution in South Carolina by building a political base of white textile mill workers from the state's upountry region. He was notorious for playing on the prejudices of poor whites to gain their votes and was an unrepentant white supremacist. Ultimately, despite his political strength, Blease failed to pass any significant legislation while governor.
