George M. Yarbrough (August 15, 1916 – November 27, 1988) was a newspaper owner and state legislator in Mississippi. He served in the

Mississippi House of Representatives The Mississippi House of Representatives is the lower house of the Mississippi Legislature, the lawmaking body of the U.S. state of Mississippi. According to the state constitution of 1890, it is to comprise no more than 122 members elected fo ...

and Mississippi Senate. He was born in

Red Banks, Mississippi Red Banks is a census-designated place and Unincorporated area, unincorporated community located in Marshall County, Mississippi, Marshall County, Mississippi, United States. The community is the birthplace of Gus Cannon, an American blues musician ...

. He achieved the rank of master sergeant in the U.S. Army during World War II. In 1958. He acquired '' The South Reporter'' and became its editor. He was elected to the Mississippi House in 1952 and to the Mississippi Senate in 1956, serving there until 1968. After leaving office he was re-elected to the state senate in 1972 and served there until 1980 when he lost re-election. He served as President Pro Tempore of the Mississippi Senate from 1960 to 1968 and served as acting Lieutenant Governor from 1966 to 1968. Yarbrough was a

Citizens Council The Citizens' Councils (commonly referred to as the White Citizens' Councils) were an associated network of white supremacist, segregationist organizations in the United States, concentrated in the South and created as part of a white backlash a ...

member and on the Executive Committee of the Citizens Councils. Yarbrough served on the committees overseeing the federal Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) program. He organized an investigation of voter drive registration efforts that included African Americans . Yarbrough ordered Mississippi Highway Patrol officers off the

University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (byname Ole Miss) is a public research university that is located adjacent to Oxford, Mississippi, and has a medical center in Jackson. It is Mississippi's oldest public university and its largest by enrollment. ...

campus while acting as the governor's representative during the 1962 protests over

James Meredith James Howard Meredith (born June 25, 1933) is an American civil rights activist, writer, political adviser, and Air Force veteran who became, in 1962, the first African-American student admitted to the racially segregated University of Mississ ...

's federal court ordered admittance to the whites only school. In 1958, he sponsored an anti-NAACP resolution.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Yarbrough, George 1916 births 1988 deaths Editors of Mississippi newspapers Mississippi state senators People from Marshall County, Mississippi Members of the Mississippi House of Representatives United States Army personnel of World War II 20th-century American legislators 20th-century American newspaper editors Military personnel from Mississippi 20th-century Mississippi politicians Citizens' Councils members