Jimmie Davis

Davis was not sure of his date of birth; according to The New York Times, "Various newspaper and magazine articles over the last 70 years said he was born in 1899, 1901, 1902 or 1903. He told The New York Times several years ago that his sharecropper parents could never recall just when he was born – he was, after all, one of 11 children – and that he had not had the slightest idea when it really was."[2][3] The birth date listed on his Country Music Hall of Fame plaque is September 11, 1904.[4]

Davis graduated from Beech Springs High School and from Soule Business College, in New Orleans.[5] His 1927 master's thesis, which examines the intelligence levels of different races, is titled Comparative Intelligence of Whites, Blacks and Mulattoes.[6]

During the late 1920s, Davis taught history (and, unofficially, yodeling) for a year at the former Dodd College for Girls in Shreveport. The college president, Monroe E. Dodd, who was also the pastor of First Baptist Church of Shreveport and a radio preacher, invited Davis to serve on the faculty.[7]

Davis was elected governor as a Democrat in 1944. Among those eliminated in the primary were State Senator Ernest S. Clements of Oberlin in Allen Parish, freshman U.S. Representative James H. Morrison of Hammond in Tangipahoa Parish, and Sam Caldwell, the mayor of Shreveport. Davis and Caldwell had served together earlier in Shreveport municipal government.

In the runoff, Davis defeated Lewis L. Morgan, an elderly attorney and former U.S. representative from Covington, the seat of St. Tammany Parish, who had been backed by former Governor Earl Kemp Long and New Orleans Mayor Robert Maestri. In the runoff, Davis received 251,228 (53.6 percent) to Morgan's 217,915 (46.4 percent).

Davis pleased white liberals with his appointments to high positions of two of the leaders of the impeachment effort against Huey Long. He named Cecil Morgan of Shreveport to the Louisiana Civil Service Commission. Morgan was succeeded in the Louisiana House by Rupert Peyton of Shreveport, who also served as an aide to Davis. In addition, Davis retained the anti-Long Ralph Norman Bauer of St. Mary Parish as House speaker, a selection made originally in 1940 by Sam Jones.[22]

Earl Long was seeking the lieutenant governorship on the Lewis Morgan "ticket" and led in the first primary in 1944, but he lost the runoff to J. Emile Verret of New Iberia, then the president of the Iberia Parish School Board.

Davis kept his hand in show business, and set a record for absenteeism during his first term. He made numerous trips to Hollywood to make Western "horse operas."[23]

Under the term limit provision of the state constitution then in effect, Davis was limited to a single non-consecutive term in office.

When he became a candidate for a second term in 1959–60, Davis had been out of office for nearly a dozen years. In a later study of this election, three Louisiana State University political scientists described him by the following:

Davis has all the external attributes of a "man of the people", but his serious political connections seem to be with the [parish-seat] elite and its allies, particularly the major industrial combinations of the state. He is in many respects a toned-down version of the old-style southern politician who could spellbound the mass of voters into supporting him regardless of the effects of his programs on their welfare. ... Davis creates the perfect image of a man to be trusted and one whose intense calm is calculated to bring rational balance into the political life of the state.[24]

Davis was running at a time when African Americans in the civil rights movement were seeking social justice and restoration of their constitutional rights. In 1954 the US Supreme Court had ruled in Brown v. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and urged states to integrate their facilities. With a pledge to fight for continued segregation in public education, Davis won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination over a crowded field.

Davis ran second in the primary to "Chep" Morrison, considered an anti-Long liberal by Louisiana standards. He defeated Morrison in the party runoff held on January 9, 1960. As African Americans (who had supported the Republican Party after the Civil War) were still largely disenfranchised in Louisiana, the Democratic primary was the only competitive race for office in the one-party state.

It has been reported that had General Curtis LeMay turned down George C. Wallace's offer to be his candidate for vice president in 1968 on the American Independent Party ticket, that Wallace was ready to announce Davis as his selection for vice president. Other sources say Wallace's second choice was the former governor of Arkansas, Orval Faubus.[25]

As part of his support of segregation, Davis initiated passage of state legislation to create the Louisiana State Sovereignty Commission, which operated from 1960 to 1967. It "espoused states rights, anti-communist and segregationist ideas, with a particular focus on maintaining the status quo in race relations. It was closely allied with the Louisiana Joint Legislative Committee on Un-American Activities."[26] It was modeled after Mississippi's commission, established in 1956 to resist integration. Davis tapped Frank Voelker Jr., City Attorney of Lake Providence, to chair the newly established Commission. It was given unusual powers to investigate state citizens, and used its authority to exert economic pressure to suppress civil rights activists. Voelker left the commission in 1963 to run for governor but placed poorly in the primary; he withdrew and supported other candidates.[27]

Davis established a State Retirement System and funding of more than $100 million in public improvements, while leaving the state with a $38 million surplus after his first term.[28]

Earl Long once remarked that Davis was so relaxed and low-key that one could not "wake up Jimmie Davis with an earthquake".[29]

Public relations specialist Gus Weill, who worked in the Davis campaign in 1959, wrote a biography of the former governor in 1977, entitled You Are My Sunshine, based on Davis' best-known song.[30]