23 Facts About Jim Folsom

Jim Folsom was the first Governor of Alabama born in the 20th century.

Jim Folsom was among the first southern governors to advocate a moderate position on integration and improvement of civil rights for African Americans.

Jim Folsom attended the University of Alabama, Samford University in Birmingham, and George Washington University in Washington, DC, but he never obtained a college degree.

Jim Folsom was a strong supporter of keeping US Vice-President Henry A Wallace on the ticket, rather than replacing him with Harry S Truman of Missouri, which occurred.

Jim Folsom was elected governor for the first time in 1946 on a New Deal liberal platform attacking corporate interests and the wealthy.

Jim Folsom waged a colorful campaign with a hillbilly band, brandishing a mop and bucket that he said would "clean out" the Capitol.

On March 3,1948, Jim Folsom's name was in headlines across the nation when the 30-year-old Christine Johnston, a widow who had met Jim Folsom in late 1944 while she was working as a cashier at the Tutwiler Hotel in Birmingham, filed a paternity suit against the governor by alleging that he was the father of her 22-month-old son.

Undaunted, nine days after the suit was filed Jim Folsom appeared on the sidewalk in front of the Barbizon Modeling School in New York City, where he kissed a hundred pretty models who had voted him "The Nation's Number One Leap Year Bachelor," attracting a crowd of 2500 onlookers and causing a traffic jam.

On May 5,1948, without prior publicity, Jim Folsom married the 20-year-old Jamelle Moore, a secretary at the state Highway Department, whom he had met during his 1946 campaign and had been dating and seeing "almost daily" since then.

Jim Folsom was 6'8" and employed the slogan "the little man's big friend.

In 1958, Folsom commuted a death sentence imposed on James E Wilson, an African American sentenced to death for a violent robbery.

However, Jim Folsom did not intervene in another controversial case; Jeremiah Reeves was electrocuted the same year, which sparked protests.

Jim Folsom later confessed that his silence was solely due to political reasons.

Jim Folsom said he "just couldn't" commute the death sentence of a black man who had been convicted of raping a white woman, since it would destroy him politically.

In 1962, Folsom again ran for governor against his one-time protege George C Wallace but was defeated.

Jim Folsom's campaign was damaged by a television appearance in which he appeared seriously intoxicated and unable to remember his children's names.

Jim Folsom ran again for governor in 1966 and faced three other leading Democrats in the primary, former US Representative Carl Elliott, former Governor John Malcolm Patterson, and Attorney General Richmond Flowers Sr.

Jim Folsom ran several times for public office but was not taken seriously by his political opponents.

Jim Folsom served as lieutenant governor of Alabama from 1987 to 1993.

Jim Folsom assumed the governor's office when Republican Governor Guy Hunt was removed from office after he had been convicted of state ethics law violations.

Jim Folsom decided to re-enter state politics in 2006, qualified, and eventually won the lieutenant governor's position again; he served from 2007 to 2011.

Jim Folsom had nine children, two by his first wife, Sarah, and seven by his second wife, Jamelle Jim Folsom.

Jim Folsom eloped and married his second wife, former First Lady of Alabama Jamelle Jim Folsom, in 1948.