Page "Albert Gore, Sr." Paragraph 6

Gore was one of only three Democratic senators from the 11 former Confederate states who did not sign the 1956 Southern Manifesto opposing integration, the other two being Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson ( who was not asked to sign ) and Gore's fellow Tennessean Estes Kefauver, who refused to sign.

South Carolina Senator J. Strom Thurmond tried to get Gore to sign the Southern Manifesto, Gore refused.

Gore could not, however, be regarded as an out-and-out integrationist, having voted against some major civil rights legislation including the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

He did support the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

He easily won renomination in 1958 over former governor Jim Nance McCord.

In those days, Democratic nomination was still tantamount to election in Tennessee since the Republican Party was more or less nonexistent west of the Appalachian Mountains.

In 1964 he faced an energetic Republican challenge from Dan Kuykendall, chairman of the Shelby County ( Memphis ) GOP, who ran a surprisingly strong race against him.

While Gore won, Kuykendall held him to only 53 percent of the vote -- a margin that would have almost certainly been closer if not for Johnson's massive landslide victory in that year's presidential election.