Ross Robert Barnett (January 22, 1898 – November 6, 1987) was the governor of Mississippi from 1960 to 1964. He was a States' Rights Democrat, as well as one of many Democrats supporting segregation.

Born in Standing Pine in Leake County, Barnett was the youngest of ten children of a Confederate veteran. He served in the United States Army during World War I, then worked in a variety of jobs while earning an undergraduate degree from Mississippi College in Clinton in 1922. Four years later, he followed that with an LL.B. from the University of Mississippi in Oxford. In 1929, he married Mary Pearl Crawford, a schoolteacher, with the couple's long-time union producing two daughters and a son.

Over the next quarter century, Barnett became one of the state's most successful trial lawyers, earning more than $100,000 per year while specializing in damage suits. He often donated his skills to causes, and served as president of the Mississippi Bar Association for two years beginning in 1943.

Using the income derived from his legal fees, Barnett sought to try his hand at politics, unsuccessfully running twice for Governor of Mississippi, in 1951 and 1955. On his third try in 1959, he won the election and was inaugurated on January 19, 1960. During his term in office he celebrated the centennial of the American Civil War. Barnett traveled to Civil War sites to pay homage to fallen "Sons Of Mississippi".