John Samuel Faubus (October 24, 1887 – August 24, 1966) was an American small farmer and founder of one of Arkansas' few chapters of the

Socialist Party of America The Socialist Party of America (SPA) was a socialist political party in the United States formed in 1901 by a merger between the three-year-old Social Democratic Party of America and disaffected elements of the Socialist Labor Party of Ameri ...

. He was the father of

Governor of Arkansas A governor is an administrative leader and head of a polity or political region, ranking under the head of state and in some cases, such as governors-general, as the head of state's official representative. Depending on the type of political r ...

Orval E. Faubus Orval Eugene Faubus ( ; January 7, 1910 – December 14, 1994) was an American politician who served as the 36th Governor of Arkansas from 1955 to 1967, as a member of the Democratic Party. In 1957, he refused to comply with a unanimous ...

Biography

Early life

He was born in Madison County on Mill Creek south of

Combs Combs may refer to: Places France * Combs-la-Ville, a commune in the southeastern suburbs of Paris United Kingdom *Combs, Derbyshire, England *Combs, Suffolk, England United States *Combs, Arkansas, a community *Combs, Kentucky, a com ...

in the

Ozark Mountains The Ozarks, also known as the Ozark Mountains, Ozark Highlands or Ozark Plateau, is a physiographic region in the U.S. states of Missouri, Arkansas, Oklahoma and the extreme southeastern corner of Kansas. The Ozarks cover a significant portio ...

Arkansas Arkansas ( ) is a landlocked state in the South Central United States. It is bordered by Missouri to the north, Tennessee and Mississippi to the east, Louisiana to the south, and Texas and Oklahoma to the west. Its name is from the Osage ...

, to William Henry Faubus and Malinda (née Sparks) Faubus, who had seven children. His father died in the winter of 1900 from

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severity ...

shortly after relocating to Greasy Creek, north of Combs, and the widow married John Nelson; she gave birth to another eight children. Altogether, John Samuel Faubus had fifteen siblings and stepsiblings and was referred to as Sam. He received little education, and when he was seventeen went to work as a journeyman hacker hewing railroad crossties. However, Sam developed a habit of reading books and self-educated; later, he became a regular correspondent to local newspapers. In his youth, Sam was easy-going, in his later years he was characterized as domineering and strong-minded. After Faubus turned twenty-one, he married Addie Joslin (1892–1936) in 1908, daughter of Thomas Joslin and Sarah Thornberry, and they had three sons, Orval, Darrow, Clarence, and three daughters, Bonnie, Connie, and Betty. He gave his oldest son Orval the middle name ''Eugene'' to honor the

founder,

Eugene V. Debs Eugene Victor "Gene" Debs (November 5, 1855 – October 20, 1926) was an American socialism, socialist, political activist, trade unionist, one of the founding members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), and five times the candidate ...

; his another son, Darrow Doyle, was named after well known at the time labor lawyer

Clarence Darrow Clarence Seward Darrow (; April 18, 1857 – March 13, 1938) was an American lawyer who became famous in the early 20th century for his involvement in the Leopold and Loeb murder trial and the Scopes "Monkey" Trial. He was a leading member of t ...

; and one more son, Elvin Carl, received a middle name after

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

.Roy Reed
Sister who opposed Faubus dies: Bonnie Lou Faubus Salcido publicly called out her brother for blocking the integration of Central High.
''Arkansas Times'', May 23, 2013. The Faubuses were subsistence farmers and toiled on their homesteaded thin-soiled upland farm in the Ozark Mountain country to provide their children with food and basic necessities; Sam also did menial work to earn money while Addie looked after children. He constantly searched for better paying jobs, he did itinerant agricultural work in the Midwest and Canada, and worked in a lead mine at

Picher, Oklahoma Picher is a ghost town and former city in Ottawa County, northeastern Oklahoma, United States. It was a major national center of lead and zinc mining for more than 100 years in the heart of the Tri-State Mining District. The decades of unrest ...

, for two years.

Political activism

Hardships politically radicalized Faubus, and in his older days he reminisced, "I worked in my younger days as a tiemaker—not the wearing kind, but the kind that railroads use. I made them for 10 cents a piece. That's why I became a liberal. I don't like slave labor, and that's just what it was."Williams, Nancy A, and Jeannie M. Whayne
''Arkansas Biography: A Collection of Notable Lives''
Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2000, pp. 98–99. Under the influence of his older and more political savvy neighbor, O. T. Green, Sam joined the

. In May 1910, he and his friend Arch Cornett, a local teacher, founded the Mill Creek Local of the

Socialist Party Socialist Party is the name of many different political parties around the world. All of these parties claim to uphold some form of socialism, though they may have very different interpretations of what "socialism" means. Statistically, most of th ...

with ten members; at an all-time high, membership was close to 30, including Addie Faubus.Parry, Janine A, and Richard P. Wang
''Readings in Arkansas Politics and Government''.
Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2009. pp. 217–220. Sam Faubus was a firm opponent of the U.S. involvement in

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

and once was arrested with Arch Cornett for distributing anti-war literature and charged with the

Sedition Act of 1918 The Sedition Act of 1918 () was an Act of the United States Congress that extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a neg ...

violation. The end of the war helped him to escape imprisonment. He also advocated introduction of the graduated income tax, old age benefits, supported racial equality (he despised and opposed segregation and racism, viewing it as plots to divide the working class), repeal of restricting voting poll tax, and

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote in elections. Beginning in the start of the 18th century, some people sought to change voting laws to allow women to vote. Liberal political parties would go on to grant women the right to vot ...

, along with other socialists in Arkansas. In the 1950s, he supported

desegregation Desegregation is the process of ending the separation of two groups, usually referring to races. Desegregation is typically measured by the index of dissimilarity, allowing researchers to determine whether desegregation efforts are having impact o ...

. Faubus's son, Orval Faubus, being the

, became nationally and internationally controversial for seeking to oppose the 1957

integration Integration may refer to: Biology *Multisensory integration *Path integration * Pre-integration complex, viral genetic material used to insert a viral genome into a host genome *DNA integration, by means of site-specific recombinase technology, ...

of Central High School in the state

capital Capital may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** List of national capital cities * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Economics and social sciences * Capital (economics), the durable produced goods used f ...

Little Rock ( The "Little Rock") , government_type = Council-manager , leader_title = Mayor , leader_name = Frank Scott Jr. , leader_party = D , leader_title2 = Council , leader_name2 ...

. Sam Faubus disapproved of Orval's actions during the integration crisis and privately conveyed his position to him. Unbeknownst to his son, he wrote letters in support of desegregation to the ''

Arkansas Gazette The ''Arkansas Gazette'' was a newspaper in Little Rock, Arkansas, that was published from 1819 to 1991. It was known as the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi River. It was located from 1908 until its closing at the now historic Gazette ...

'' signed by a

pseudonym A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person or group assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true name (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individua ...

, ''Jimmie Higgins'', which was the Socialist Party slang for a novice member. At that time, Sam Faubus already changed his political standing, becoming a Franklin Roosevelt's

New Deal The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1939. Major federal programs agencies included the Civilian Cons ...

Democrat. Ultimately, the Federal Government intervened, and nine

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

students known as the

Little Rock Nine The Little Rock Nine were a group of nine African American students enrolled in Little Rock Central High School in 1957. Their enrollment was followed by the Little Rock Crisis, in which the students were initially prevented from entering ...

went on to graduate from Little Rock Central High School.

Later years

After he widowed in 1936, Faubus married in 1952 a widow, Maudie Blanch Jostmeyer Wonders (1903-1987), and lived on a ten-acre farm on Milk Creek where he raised chickens. The neighbors called him "Uncle Sam" after Orval Faubus became a governor. John Samuel Faubus died from

lymphatic cancer Lymphoma is a group of blood and lymph tumors that develop from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). In current usage the name usually refers to just the cancerous versions rather than all such tumours. Signs and symptoms may include enlar ...

on August 24, 1966, and was interred at Combs Cemetery in Madison County. His gravestone bears an inscription, "He did his share of the world's work." The ''

'' wrote about him, "Sam Faubus would have stood out in any time, that of his own father, his father's father, anytime. The Ozark mountaineers needed such a man who could articulate their anger at the exploitative economic system that plagued their lives."

References

External links