[2][3] He was appointed in 1923 as United States Special Assistant to the Attorney General under Warren G. Harding, serving also under Calvin Coolidge, and into Herbert Hoover's administration, resigning in 1928.
[1] Following the trials, Howard resigned from his post in the United States Department of Justice, but he retained his position as head of the Republican Party in Mississippi and member of the National Committee.
[1] Similar to famous activist and leader Booker T. Washington, Howard was considered a "prudent accommodationist,"[6] and his speeches often drew more support from whites than blacks.
[9] Howard graduated from the historically black Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi and then studied mathematics at Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee.
[11] Howard became active in Republican Party politics despite the constraints of Mississippi life; most blacks in the state had been disenfranchised in 1890 when the white Democrats passed a new constitution with provisions that created barriers to voter registration, such as poll taxes and a literacy test.
Although Howard lived and worked in Washington, D.C., for the rest of his life, he retained his office as Republican National Committeeman of Mississippi and control of its patronage appointments in the state.
[13] He also had suggested the nomination of conservative U.S. representative Hamilton Fish III for vice president, stating that the GOP ticket would thereby maintain a stronghold among the black vote in competing against Democratic nominee Alfred E.
Herbert Hoover, who had been elected as president during the machinations of investigation and indictment, was considered interested in cleaning up corruption but also in appealing to southern whites.
[1] In 1942, Howard gave his support to a resolution putting the National GOP on record against the violation of the First Amendment rights of black Republicans by the Memphis political machine led by E.H. Crump.
Despite compelling evidence of massive violations of free speech rights, top officials of the Department of Justice, well aware of Roosevelt's close and friendly political ties with Crump, vetoed plans for a prosecution.
In 1956, the Howard forces (long called the "Blacks and Tans" for their biracial character) began to be challenged anew for control of the Mississippi state party by a white conservative faction led by Wirt Yerger, an insurance agent in Jackson.
[2][8] Mary Booze of Mound Bayou, an all-black community in Bolivar County in northwestern Mississippi, served alongside Howard as the national Republican committeewoman from 1924 to 1948.