Hugh Lawson White (August 19, 1881 – September 20, 1965) was an American politician from Mississippi and a member of the Democratic Party.

[1][2] He convinced the Reliance Manufacturing Company to open a plant in Columbia, helping his community survive the Great Depression.

[4] Local governments could issue bonds to construct factories that could be leased to companies (which were also offered tax breaks).

[4] After leaving office due to term limits, White was a delegate representing Mississippi at the 1948 Democratic National Convention.

During the 1940s and early 1950s, federal courts made a series of decisions that indicated that the notion of "separate but equal" schools would soon be declared unconstitutional.

Governor White and the state legislature prepared for that possibility by creating plans that sought to improve black schools.

In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court made the famous Brown v. Board of Education decision that declared the practice of "separate but equal" to be unconstitutional.