J. B. Banks

J. B. "Jet" Banks (c. 1924 – October 12, 2003) was an American Democratic politician who served in the Missouri Senate and in the Missouri legislature for three decades. Banks, the son of a sharecropper, rose to become state senate majority leader, making him Missouri's highest-ranking black elected official.[1]

Born in or near Hermondale, Missouri, he graduated from Lincoln University with a bachelor's of science degree and a Doctor of Laws in English degree. Banks also had a Doctor of Humane Letters from Harris-Stowe State College. He worked in several different fields including as a real estate appraiser, a real estate broker, the president of construction and developing firms, an insurance underwriter, and an author.[2]

J. Bernard Banks entered the Missouri House of Representatives in 1969. He was elected to the Missouri Senate in 1976. In the 1970s, Banks also led legislation to merge Harris-Stowe, a financially struggling historically black St. Louis college, into the state higher education system. Banks sometimes changed suits several times a day as a way to be flamboyant.

Banks resigned in December 1999 due to ill health and three months after he pleaded guilty to filing false state income tax returns, a felony for which he received five years probation, 300 hours of court-ordered community service, and a prohibition from holding any elected or appointed office while on probation. In 2003, he died at a Las Vegas hospital's emergency room of natural causes at the age of 79.[1]