A Democrat and segregationist conservative, Gathings was an ally of Strom Thurmond, and stood against all civil rights legislation.

Gathings also chaired the 1952 House Select Committee on Current Pornographic Materials, which advocated for censorship of obscene magazines, books, and comics.

[5] After Gathings was born in Prairie, Mississippi, his family moved to Earle, Arkansas when the boy was school-aged.

He was a signatory of the 1956 Southern Manifesto[7] that opposed the desegregation of public schools ordered by the Supreme Court in Brown v. Board of Education.

This article incorporates public domain material from the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress