Benjamin Muse

Benjamin Muse
Member of the Virginia Senate from the 8th district
In office January 8, 1936 – September 11, 1936
Preceded by	Robert Gilliam, Jr.
Succeeded by	Morton G. Goode
Personal details
Born	Benjamin Muse April 17, 1898 Durham, North Carolina, U.S.
Died	May 4, 1986 (aged 88) Reston, Virginia, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Other political affiliations	Democratic (before 1936)
Spouse(s)	Beatriz de Regil
Children	Benjamin Muse III
Alma mater	Trinity College George Washington University
Religion	Catholic
Military service
Allegiance	United Kingdom  United States
Service/branch	British Army United States Army
Years of service	1917–1919 1942–1944
Rank	Lieutenant Colonel
Unit	King's Royal Rifle Corps Adjutant General's Corps
Battles/wars	First World War Second World War

Benjamin Muse (April 17, 1898 – May 4, 1986) was an American lawyer, soldier, diplomat, newspaper publisher, author and politician. He briefly who served as a member of the Virginia Senate (switching allegiances from the Democratic to the Republican Party and was defeated when he ran as an Independent for the Petersburg, Virginia seat; he resigned as a result of that switch). In 1941 Muse, running as the Republican candidate for Governor of Virginia, lost overwhelmingly to Democrat Colgate Darden, a member of the state's Byrd Organization. Later, Muse lived in Manassas, Virginia, from where he opposed and chronicled the Massive Resistance crisis fostered by U.S. Senator Harry F. Byrd and Richmond newspaperman James J. Kilpatrick as they fomented opposition to the United States Supreme Court decisions in Brown v. Board of Education which overturned racial segregation in public schools.^[1][2]

Early and family life

Muse was born in Durham, North Carolina, on April 17, 1898. He was raised in Petersburg, Virginia and attended Trinity College (now Duke University). After his wartime service discussed below, Muse attended graduate school at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

While serving in Mexico in 1925, Muse married Beatriz de Regil (1901-1983) from Merida, Mexico in the Yucatan Peninsula. They had two sons—Benjamin Muse Jr. (1927-2012) (born during his father's posting in Paris, France) and Paul Muse (of Suffolk, Virginia)--as well as daughters Katherine Furcron of Cuernavaca, Mexico Phillipa Millard of Gainesville, Virginia and Carlota Rokita of Vienna, Austria.^[3]

Military and diplomatic careers

As World War I began, Muse volunteered in 1914 and served in the British Army with the King's Royal Rifle Corps. Germans captured him in 1916, but he was ultimately freed. Upon returning to the U.S., Muse studied in Washington D.C. until joining the State Department in 1920. He held various diplomatic posts in Europe and Latin America. The culmination of his fourteen years of service may have been his term as counselor to the U.S. delegation to the Seventh International Conference of American States in 1933, at which President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Secretary of State Cordell Hull declared the Good Neighbor policy and which led to the Montevideo Convention.^[4]

After farming near Petersburg and the part-time political career discussed below, in 1939, the elder Muse enlisted in the U.S. Army as World War II began. He served in the Adjutant General Corps, assigned to Washington, D.C. until 1945, and retired with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. His son and namesake enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1944, and served in the Pacific, including patrols on the Yangtze River in China.^[5]

Political career

Upon resigning from the Foreign Service and returning to the United States in 1934, Muse settled in Petersburg and began farming. The following year, Muse won election as a Democrat to represent the state's 8th district.^[6] However, he switched parties nine months into his term, and resigned after heavy criticism, then ran for his former seat as an independent and lost. Muse changed parties because he came to oppose President Roosevelt's New Deal.

In 1941, Muse became the Republican Party's nominee for Governor of Virginia. He campaigned for repeal of the poll tax and other liberal reforms, and lost overwhelmingly in the general election (winning just 17.6% of the votes) to Colgate Darden, who had the support of the Byrd Organization and won 80.6% of the votes cast.^[7] Darden later became a good friend, as well as led the University of Virginia through the Massive Resistance crisis discussed below.

Writer, publisher and opponent of Massive Resistance

During his World War II service in the U.S. Army, Muse, assigned to Washington, D.C., bought a farm in Manassas, Virginia (then a distant suburb). He founded and published a local newspaper, the Manassas Messenger, selling it in 1950 (it later became the Journal-Messenger) but continuing a related printing business until 1966.

During the 1950s and early 1960s, Muse wrote a weekly "Virginia Affairs" column for the Washington Post. It chronicled problems resulting from racial segregation and policies of the Byrd Organization. He also criticized the NAACP for pushing for rapid school desegregation, especially in Prince Edward County. Muse also wrote about Southern affairs in The Nation and The New Republic.

After both a three-judge federal panel and the Virginia Supreme Court declared most of the Stanley plan (a package of laws designed to support Massive Resistance) unconstitutional on January 19, 1959 (birthday of Robert E. Lee and a Virginia state holiday), Muse (who considered himself a "fighting moderate" rather than a liberal) directed the Southern Leadership Project of the Southern Regional Council, an early private civil rights organization. For four years Muse toured the South urging voluntary compliance with court desegregation orders. President John F. Kennedy also appointed him to a commission to monitor racial equality in the armed forces.^[8]

Muse published his first book, Virginia's Massive Resistance^[9] in 1961, and Ten Years of Prelude (also about Massive Resistance) in 1964. He also published Tarheel Tommy Atkins(1963) about World War I. He later published The American Negro Revolution: From Nonviolence to Black Power, 1963-1967.^[10] His last book was The Twentieth Century as I Saw It (1981).

Death and legacy

Retiring from both farming and publishing in 1966 (as President Lyndon B. Johnson began implementing the Civil Rights Act of 1965 and funding desegregating schools), Muse and his wife moved to the newly developed Reston, Virginia. He died at his home two decades later, and was interred at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church cemetery in Prince William County.^[11] He survived his wife, and was survived by five children, 24 grandchildren and 13 great-grandchildren. His papers from 1934 through 1966 are held in the Special Collections section of the library of the University of Virginia at Charlottesville.^[12]

See also

Brian J. Daugherity, Keep on Keeping On: the NAACP and the Implementation of Brown v. Board of Education in Virginia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016)^[13]

References

1. http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Muse_Benjamin_1898-1986
2. J.Y. Smith, Benjamin Muse Dies at 87in Washington Post obituary, May 6, 1986 at p. B6
3. Washington Post obituary
4. UVA library bio
5. http://obits.dignitymemorial.com/dignity-memorial/obituary.aspx?n=Benjamin-Muse&lc=7887&pid=158593010&mid=5172126
6. Dodson, E. Griffith (1939). The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 1919-1939: Register. Richmond: Virginia State Library. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
7. http://historical.elections.virginia.gov/elections/search/year_from:1941/year_to:1941/office_id:3
8. Washington Post obituary
9. Benjamin Muse, Virginia's Massive Resistance (1961) available at https://archive.org/stream/virginiasmassive013514mbp#page/n0/mode/2up
10. in 1968 in the original unsourced article here; in 1971 per his Washington Post obituary
11. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=17660443
12. http://ead.lib.virginia.edu/vivaxtf/view?docId=uva-sc/viu03886.xml
13. http://www.upress.virginia.edu/title/4721