| Explore the life and times of Jesse Helms from his childhood through his 60-year career as a journalist and United State senator.
1950
Governor Kerr Scott asks Helms to serve as Senator Graham’s press secretary in his 1950 reelection bid. Helms declines, saying he supports Willis Smith, a conservative Raleigh attorney challenging Graham in the Democratic primary. During the campaign, Helms meets Tom Ellis, a young Raleigh attorney doing research for Smith.
Despite Smith’s assertions that Graham associated with Communist-front organizations, Graham wins a strong plurality--but not an outright majority--in the first primary, and Smith all but decides not to call for a runoff. After three Supreme Court decisions furthering desegregation inflame racial fears, Jesse Helms encourages WRAL radio listeners to go to Smith’s home to urge him to call for a runoff. Smith agrees, and the runoff election turns on the fears generated by the race issue. Willis Smith defeats Frank Graham by a narrow margin.
1951
Helms becomes Senator Smith’s administrative assistant in Washington. Smith serves on the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee, which investigates Communist activities. It is the era of the Korean War, the Rosenberg executions and Joseph McCarthy, and freshman Senator Richard Nixon’s office is next to Smith’s. Jesse Helms breathes a daily dose of anti-communism.
1952
The greatest influence on Helms in Washington is Senator Richard Russell of Georgia. Russell is the leader of the Southern Democrats, a champion of states' rights who filibusters to prevent passage of any civil rights legislation. "Russell made men think," Helms said. "He rejected absolutely the kind of politics that preaches that the world owes anybody anything." Helms serves as media advisor for Russell in his unsuccessful attempt to gain the presidential nomination at the 1952 Democratic convention in Chicago.
1953
After Willis Smith's sudden death in 1953, Helms returns to Raleigh to become executive director of the North Carolina Bankers Association, where he edits and writes columns for its monthly magazine, the Tarheel Banker. Within two years, Helms doubles the magazine’s paid circulation, giving it the largest of any state banking publication in America. He and Dot build a house next door to her father in an exclusive section of Raleigh.
1954
The Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision declares that state laws establishing separate public schools for black and white students deny black children equal educational opportunities.
1955
Helms’s Tarheel Banker columns begin to address the race issue head on, linking integration efforts with communism. The New & Observer claims that Helms has "made the organ of the North Carolina bankers the journal of his personal prejudices.”
1956
Helms calls for "a complete realignment of the two parties." He writes, "The people of the South, believing as they do in states rights and conservatism, have no place to go. Neither party is headed in our direction."
1957
Helms has become a well-known figure in Raleigh from his years as a reporter, radio personality and head of the bankers association. In his first entry into politics, he is elected to the first of two two-year terms on the Raleigh city council. He votes against expansion of the city's power and budget, and holds up appointments of planning commission and school board members until he gets either his own choices or extracts promises from the nominees.
|
