Dates: 1956-1969 (bulk 1964-1965)
Size: 0.17 cubic feet

Biography:

Joseph Ruble Griffin

Joseph Ruble Griffin was born in Chickasaw County, Mississippi, on July 4, 1923. He was the fourth of five sons of Virgil Harold Griffin and Martha Elizabeth Davis Griffin, and grew up on a farm in Mantee, Webster County, Mississippi. J. Ruble Griffin attended public schools and then Wood Junior College in Mathiston, Webster County. From 1943 to 1946, he served as a United States Army paratrooper in Europe during World War II. Griffin graduated from the University of Mississippi School of Law in Oxford, Lafayette County, in 1948, and then returned to Webster County, practicing law in Eupora. He subsequently became city attorney and was elected county prosecuting attorney. In 1950, he ran for district attorney of the seven-county circuit that included Webster County.

In 1955, Griffin moved to Jackson, Mississippi, and became an assistant attorney general for the state. While in this position, he attracted attention at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. There he delivered nationally televised testimony before the convention’s credentials committee on behalf of the “regular” Mississippi Democratic Party’s right to seat its delegates. The seating of these delegates was challenged by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party. Likewise, the Freedom Democratic Party challenged the results of Mississippi’s 1964 elections for the United States House of Representatives, alleging that the contests were illegal due to widespread suppression of African American voting.

Griffin moved to Bay St. Louis, Hancock County, Mississippi, in 1965, and returned to private law practice. He later served as city attorney there and attorney for both the county board of supervisors and school board. In 1973, he was appointed to fill a vacancy as a state circuit court judge for the second circuit (Hancock, Harrison, and Stone Counties), subsequently winning election to three terms in that office. Griffin was appointed to fill a vacancy on the Mississippi Supreme Court in 1986, representing the second (southern) district. He won election to a full term later that year and served until his death.

J. Ruble Griffin married Ruth Lollar around 1946; they had two children. He died of lung cancer at Mississippi Baptist Medical Center in Jackson on December 29, 1988, and was buried at Mount Pleasant Cemetery in Webster County. Ruth Lollar Griffin survived him and died in 2013.

 

Scope and Content Note:

This collection consists of correspondence, political papers, and personal papers of Mississippi assistant attorney general Joseph Ruble Griffin, later a state Supreme Court justice. Of particular interest is the correspondence related to Griffin’s role in fighting legal challenges to the seating of the state Democratic Party’s delegates at the 1964 Democratic National Convention and to the results of Mississippi’s 1964 elections for the United States House of Representatives, both brought by the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party.

 

Series Identification:

Series 1: Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party Convention and Election Challenge Papers, 1964-1966.

This series consists primarily of correspondence to J. Ruble Griffin, arranged chronologically, related to the Freedom Democratic Party’s convention and election challenges. The 1964 correspondence (folder 1) contains letters from friends, relatives, and politicians praising Griffin’s testimony to the credentials committee at the Democratic National Convention. A few letters have copies of Griffin’s replies attached. Also included is a letter from CBS News reporter Mike Wallace, thanking Griffin for information provided during the convention.

The 1965 correspondence (folder 2) primarily consists of letters to Griffin from Mississippi’s members of the United States House, thanking him for information and assistance provided during the challenges of the election results. Writers include members of Congress William M. Colmer, Thomas G. Abernethy, Jamie L. Whitten, and John Bell Williams. Included are two copies of the Committee on House Administration’s report in favor of dismissing the election challenges, and a copy of the Congressional Record for September 17, 1965, which includes the floor debate on the challenges. Two newsclippings about the election challenges are also included.

Box 1, folders 1-2

 

Series 2: Other Political Papers, 1956-1966.

This series consists of three items related to Ruble Griffin’s career in Mississippi politics. The first is a program from J. P. Coleman’s 1956 inauguration as governor. The second item is a speech given by the brother of attorney general Joseph Turner Patterson (under whom Griffin served as an assistant attorney general) in support of Patterson’s 1963 re-election campaign. The final item is a 1966 letter to Coleman from State Senator J. P. Davis of Mantee, expressing dissatisfaction with a legislative reapportionment plan proposed by the state legislature. Davis sent a copy of this letter to Griffin hoping that Griffin could offer help in the situation.

Box 1, folder 3

 

Series 3: Personal Papers, 1964-1969.

This series contains photocopies of four typewritten letters from Ruble Griffin to Gertie Rush Giddens of Shreveport, Louisiana; and a photocopy of one handwritten letter from Giddens to Griffin’s parents, all sent between February and May 1964. The letters discuss genealogical connections between the writers’ families. Most of the correspondence focuses on the Rush family; the Griffin, Moncrief, McMullen, Hunter, and Bobo families are also discussed, among others. The other item in the series is a commuter’s toll fee coupon book for the Bay St. Louis Bridge on U.S. Highway 90. The book, issued to Griffin in 1969, includes thirty-nine intact coupons and two unused windshield stickers.

Box 1, folder 4