Listen Mr. Bilbo

Mr. Theodore G. Bilbo was a US senator, and not a good one. A member of the Ku Klux Klan, he once proposed a bill that would deport 12 million African-Americans to Liberia… in an effort to save on unemployment costs. He accepted illegal contributions, among them

excavation of a lake for… creating…his…own…island?

And, just when you think he couldn’t get any worse, he was well-known for his frequent practice of illeism, the use of the third person to refer to oneself.

Adrienne Claiborne wrote this song with singer, labor activist and husband Bob Claiborne, in 1938. District voters seemed unswayed by the protest and Bilbo would remain in office for nearly a decade longer.