John J. Riley Explained

John Jacob Riley
State:South Carolina
Term Start1:January 3, 1945
Term End1:January 3, 1949
Predecessor1:Willa L. Fulmer
Successor1:Hugo S. Sims, Jr.
Term Start2:January 3, 1951
Term End2:January 1, 1962
Predecessor2:Hugo S. Sims, Jr.
Successor2:Corinne Boyd Riley
Birth Date:1 February 1895
Birth Place:Orangeburg, South Carolina
Death Place:Surfside, South Carolina
Resting Place:Sumter, South Carolina
Party:Democratic
Profession:Teacher, businessman, politician
Alma Mater:Wofford College

John Jacob Riley (February 1, 1895 – January 1, 1962) was a U.S. Representative from South Carolina, husband of Corinne Boyd Riley.

Early life

Born on a farm near Orangeburg, South Carolina, Riley attended the public schools in Orangeburg County. His grandfather, Onan Beverly Riley (1844-1945), was a Confederate veteran. He graduated from Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in 1915. Riley taught in the Orangeburg city schools 1915–1917, and at Clemson Agricultural and Mechanical College in 1917 and 1918.

During the First World War served in the United States Navy as a seaman, second class, and as a yeoman, third class, from 1918 to 1919. After the war, he engaged in the real estate and insurance business in Sumter, South Carolina from 1919 to 1945, and served as secretary of a building and loan association from 1923 to 1945.

Political career

Riley served as delegate to the Democratic State conventions from 1928 to 1944. He was elected as a Democrat to the Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Congresses (January 3, 1945 – January 3, 1949). He was an unsuccessful candidate for renomination in 1948, but won the nomination again in 1950.

Riley was elected to the Eighty-second and to the five succeeding Congresses and served from January 3, 1951, until his death at Surfside, near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, January 1, 1962. Riley Park (Sumter) was named after him.He was interred in Sumter Cemetery, Sumter, South Carolina.

He was a signatory to the 1956 Southern Manifesto that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.

See also