Ray Mabus

Mabus was born on October 11, 1948, in Ackerman, Mississippi. He was the only child of Raymond Mabus Sr. (1901–1986), a successful timber farmer, and Lucille (née Curtis) Mabus (1909–2000), a teacher. His paternal uncle, merchant Leslie E. Mabus (1896–1992), was a member of the Mississippi State Senate from 1932 to 1936.

Mabus graduated from Ackermann High School in 1966 as class valedictorian. He graduated summa cum laude from the University of Mississippi, where he was a member of Beta Theta Pi, with a Bachelor of Arts in English and political science. He earned a Master of Arts in political science from Johns Hopkins University and a Juris Doctor, magna cum laude, from Harvard Law School. He had been offered a Fulbright Scholarship, had held a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, and had traveled widely throughout Europe, the Middle East, Russia, and Latin America. Prior to attending law school, he also served two years in the Navy as a surface warfare officer from 1970 to 1972 aboard the cruiser USS Little Rock (CLG-4), achieving the rank of lieutenant junior grade. He worked as a law clerk in the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and as a legal counsel to a subcommittee of the United States House Committee on Agriculture.

Executive action and appointments

Mabus staffed his gubernatorial administration with a significant number of political moderates from outside the state. He appointed the first black members to the State Tax Commission and the first woman head of the Department of Public Safety. Mabus had potential judicial appointments vetted by a commission before making a selection among their nominees.

Mabus married Julie Hines, the daughter of a Jackson banker, in 1987, shortly before he ran for governor. Some observers speculated that the marriage was meant to improve his image before the campaign. They had two daughters together. They divorced in 2000, with the separation proceedings and the following custody dispute over their children marked by bitterness. A Hinds County court ultimately granted Mabus shared custody with the children. He married Lynne Horecky in 2007.

Mabus is a fan of the Boston Red Sox having first followed the team during the 1975 World Series while a student at Harvard Law School. During his tenure as Navy Secretary, he threw ceremonial first pitches at all 30 major league baseball parks in the United States, the only person ever believed to have done so.

Acting

In 2009, and again in 2014, Mabus made cameo appearances on the TV drama NCIS in the Season 7 episode "Child's Play", and in the Season 12 episode "Semper Fortis", as an NCIS Agent named "Ray". In 2012, he appeared in the movie Battleship as the commanding officer of the USS Ronald Reagan. Mabus made a cameo appearance as himself in the "It's Not a Rumor" episode of the TV series The Last Ship, issuing orders to the crew of the Nathan James via a recorded message; in the storyline, by the time the ship received the orders, Mabus had succumbed to the "Red Flu" virus.

Mabus volunteered for William F. Winter's unsuccessful gubernatorial candidacy in 1967. Following Winter's successful election to the governorship in 1979, Mabus returned to Mississippi to work as the governor's legal counsel in 1980. While in office, Winter and his staff pushed through a legislative overhaul of the state's public education system. Mabus was one of several of the governor's aides who delivered lectures across the state to build popular support for the reform bill.

State senator Ellis B. Bodron, who was broadly opposed to the legislation, denounced Mabus and the other young Winter aides—including Dick Molpus, David Crews, Bill Gartin, Andy P. Mullins, and John Henegan—as the "Boys of Spring", a moniker which they thereafter took pride in. Mabus also helped draft an open records law and more stringent driving under the influence legislation. He left the counsel position in 1983.

Political affairs

In January 1988, Mabus indicated that he wanted to replace the chairman of the Mississippi Democratic Party, Ed Cole, the first black man to hold the position. The move rankled many black Democrats in the state. Some of Cole's supporters accused Mabus of racism, but most criticized him for attempting to effect a personal takeover of the party. Mabus and his allies attempted to cast Cole as an "old guard" moderate of an ineffective organization while portraying his desired candidate, Billie Thompson, as an effective reformer and fundraiser. On April 9, the party's executive committee voted to reelect Cole as chairman. In his victory speech, Cole declared, "I want [Mabus] to know that he belongs to our party and our party does not belong to him."

Ship naming controversies

As Navy secretary, Mabus was given the responsibility of naming the force's ships. In April 2010 a furor arose when it was reported that Mabus made the proposal to name a United States Navy warship the USS John P. Murtha (LPD-26) after the late Pennsylvania Democratic congressman John Murtha. Additional naming controversies occurred due to the naming of the auxiliary ship USNS Cesar Chavez (T-AKE-14) after civil rights activist Cesar Chavez and a littoral combat ship the USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS-10) in honor of former Arizona Democratic Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, after she suffered life-threatening wounds in the 2011 mass shooting in her home district of Tucson, Arizona.

Subsequent ship namings include his January 6, 2016, announcement of his naming of another auxiliary ship after civil rights activist and sitting incumbent Georgia Democratic Congressman John Lewis (i.e., USNS John Lewis (T-AO-205)). Mabus further stated that this particular class of auxiliary ship, of which the John Lewis would be the lead ship, would all be named after civil rights leaders. In April he announced his plans to name a destroyer after former Senate Armed Services Committee chairman Carl Levin. Congressional Republicans accused Mabus of politicizing the ship-naming process, and Representative Steven Palazzo unsuccessfully attempted to amend a defense appropriation bill to bar the secretary from naming ships after congressmen who were not military service members. On July 14, 2016, Mabus named ship T-AO-206 after gay rights icon and San Francisco Democratic politician Harvey Milk. The ship was renamed in 2025, as part of the Trump administration's rollback of DEI policies and programs.