How Boss Crump stared down a governor’s threat to send the National Guard to Memphis

By  and , Guest Columnist Published: October 15, 2025 4:00 AM CT
Guest Columnist

Robert Dean Pope

Robert Dean Pope is a historian by training and a former journalist. He and his son Justin Pope are writing a forthcoming biography of E.H. Crump for the University of Virginia Press. They have been conducting archival research on Crump for several years.

Guest Columnist

Justin Pope

Justin Pope is a historian by training and a former journalist. He and his father Robert Dean Pope are writing a forthcoming biography of E.H. Crump for the University of Virginia Press. They have been conducting archival research on Crump for several years.

Memphians may be intrigued to learn what happened in 1938 in a world where Memphis stood largely united against a National Guard deployment, behind a self-assured leader with a powerful political organization and friends in Washington, D.C.

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Guest Columns National Guard Boss Crump

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