Controversial Memphis mayor Henry Loeb III, 1920--1992: A biographical study (Tennessee)

In the overall panorama of twentieth century local politics, Henry Loeb III was a controversial two-term Memphis mayor from 1960 to 1963 and 1968 to 1972. His family background, education, and his World War II naval experience to a large extent shaped his personality and public policies from his days as the Public Service Commissioner in 1956 to his retirement in 1972. Loeb in his public and private life earned both appreciation and criticism from a wide section of Memphians and Mid-Southerners.; This biography explores the changing and unchanging dimensions of Loeb's personality in retrospect with the changing racial composition and race relations, and it classifies Loeb as an old generation Memphian and an individual with a combination of political opportunism, public concern, and ambition. These three inter-related dimensions were the driving forces for his sixteen-year political career. His corporate exposure, and his intermittent switch to family business and philanthropy, equipped him with unique qualities and abilities. Even though his change in party affiliation from Democrat to Republican, and his critical remarks on national Vietnam policies during Johnson's and Nixon's presidencies, brought him in direct contact and conflict with prominent politicians, he was specifically limited or rather forced to confine himself to Memphis and the Mid-South.; Loeb strongly defended the white establishment and racial separation and did not hesitate to attack his opponents no matter how formidable they were. This attitude strained his relations even with some of his colleagues in the city administration and some of his family friends whom he earlier supported, but did not affect his public image, which remained dominant in Memphis history until his death in 1992.; Black Memphians blamed Loeb for the assassination of the civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This incident on the one hand discredited Loeb and his white establishment in the city and on the other end established a milestone in the on going black struggle for civil rights in the national scene.; Unlike E. H. Crump, Loeb is one of the last social and fiscal conservative Memphians to lack an in-depth biographical study. This work is a beginning to rectify the oversight.