Jimmie Davis

Early life

Davis was born to a sharecropping couple, the former Sarah Elizabeth Works (1877–1965) and Samuel Jones Davis (1873–1945), in the now-ghost town of Beech Springs southeast of Quitman in Jackson Parish in north Louisiana. The family was so poor that young Jimmie did not have a bed in which to sleep until he was nine years old. 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." According to the Los Angeles Times, "Davis was not sure exactly how old he was, noting only that he was born around the turn of the last century." The birth date listed on his Country Music Hall of Fame plaque is September 11, 1902. However, the 1900 US Census attests to his being born in September 1899.

He graduated from Beech Springs High School and the New Orleans campus of Soule Business College. Davis received his bachelor's degree in history from the Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville in Rapides Parish. He received a master's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. His 1927 master's thesis, which examines the intelligence levels of different races, is titled Comparative Intelligence of Whites, Blacks and Mulattoes.

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 the large First Baptist Church of Shreveport and a pioneer radio preacher, invited Davis to join the faculty.

Musical career

Davis became a commercially successful singer of rural music before he entered politics. His early work was in the style of early country music luminary Jimmie Rodgers, and he was also known for recording energetic and raunchy blues tunes such as "Red Nightgown Blues". Some of these records included slide guitar accompaniment by black bluesman Oscar "Buddy" Woods. During his first run for governor, opponents reprinted the lyrics of some of these songs in order to undermine Davis's campaign. In one case, anti-Davis forces played some records over an outdoor sound system only to give up after the crowds started dancing, ignoring the double-entendre lyrics. Until the end of his life, Davis never denied or repudiated those records.

In 1999, "You Are My Sunshine" was honored with a Grammy Hall of Fame Award and the Recording Industry Association of America named it one of the Songs of the Century. "You Are My Sunshine" was ranked in 2003 as No. 73 on CMT's 100 Greatest Songs in Country Music. Until his death, Davis insisted that he wrote the song. In any case, it will forever be associated with him. Virginia Shehee, the Shreveport businesswoman, philanthropist, and state senator, introduced legislation to make "Your Are My Sunshine" the official state song.

Davis became the popular "singing governor" of Louisiana who often performed during his campaign stops. While governor, he had a No. 1 hit single in 1945 with "There's a New Moon Over My Shoulder". Davis recorded for Decca Records for decades and released more than 40 albums. A long-time member of the Baptist faith, he also recorded a number of Southern gospel albums and in 1967 served as president of the Gospel Music Association. He was a close friend of the North Dakota-born band leader Lawrence Welk who frequently reminded viewers of his television program of his association with Davis.

A number of his songs were used as part of motion picture soundtracks, and Davis himself appeared in half a dozen films, one with Ozzie and Harriet. Members of Davis' last band included Allen "Puddler" Harris of Lake Charles, who had also been an original pianist for Ricky Nelson.

Political career

Davis was elected in 1938 as Shreveport's public safety commissioner. At the time, Shreveport had the city commission form of government but switched in 1978 to the current mayor-council format. After four years in Shreveport City Hall, Davis was elected in 1942 to the Louisiana Public Service Commission but left the rate-making body, which meets in Baton Rouge, two years later to begin his first term as governor.

First term as governor (1944–1948)

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 carried the backing of former Governor Earl Kemp Long and New Orleans Mayor Robert Maestri. Davis received 251,228 (53.6 percent) to Morgan's 217,915 (46.4 percent).

Davis recruited Chris Faser, Jr., a young staff member of the Public Service Commission in Baton Rouge to manage his gubernatorial races and to act as chief of staff. Faser was considered the "go-to" guy to obtain access to the governor.

Davis pleased conservatives with his appointments to high positions of two of the leaders of the impeachment forces against Huey Pierce Long, Jr. 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.

On the other hand, Davis reached out to the Longites when he commuted the prison sentence imposed on former LSU President James Monroe Smith in the Louisiana Hayride scandals of the late 1930s. Like Davis, Smith was a native of Davis' Jackson Parish.

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 with trips to Hollywood to make Western "horse operas."

Davis was term-limited to a single non-consecutive term in office.

The election of 1959–1960

As a candidate for a second term in 1959–1960, Davis had been out of office for nearly a dozen years. Three Louisiana State University political scientists described him, accordingly:

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.

With a pledge to fight for continued segregation in public education, Davis, won the Democratic gubernatorial nomination over a crowded field that included staunchly segregationist State Senator William M. Rainach of Claiborne Parish, former Lieutenant Governor Bill Dodd of Baton Rouge, former Governor James A. Noe of Monroe, and Mayor deLesseps Story Morrison. Addison Roswell Thompson, the operator of a New Orleans taxicab stand and a member of the Ku Klux Klan, also filed candidacy papers. Davis ran second to "Chep" Morrison, considered an anti-Long liberal by Louisiana standards, in the primary but then defeated Morrison in the party runoff held on January 9, 1960.

In the first round of balloting, Davis polled 213,551 (25.3 percent) to Morrison's 278,956 (33.1 percent). Rainach ran third with 143,095 (17 percent). Noe finished fourth with 97,654 (11.6 percent), and Dodd followed with 85,436 (10.1 percent). Davis won the northern and central parts of the state plus Baton Rouge, while Morrison dominated the southern portion of the state, particularly the French cultural parishes. In the runoff, Davis prevailed, 487,681 (54.1 percent) to Morrison's 414,110 (45.5 percent). It was estimated that Davis drew virtually all the Rainach support from the first primary.

Earl Long endorsed Davis in the runoff in part because he had a longstanding personal dislike of Morrison. Long's gubernatorial running-mate, James A. Noe, who finished fourth in the primary, stood with Morrison, as did the fifth-place gubernatorial candiudate and former Long lieutenant governor, Bill Dodd.

Rainach and his unsuccessful candidate for state comptroller, later U.S. Representative Joe D. Waggonner, both endorsed Davis on the premise that Davis would be a stronger segregationist than Morrison. Davis had avoided segregationist rhetoric in the first primary race in 1959 and, according to Morrison, had sought support from the NAACP in New Orleans and Lake Charles. In the runoff with Morrison, Davis projected himself as a more determined and dedicated segregationist than his rival. Morrison questioned Davis's change in campaign strategy and tried himself to appeal to segregationists. Morrison charged that Davis had "operated an integrated honky-tonk in California", when Davis was out of state with his singing career. Morrison also said that Davis had allowed the illegal operation of nine thousand slot machines when Davis was governor during the 1940s.

Meanwhile, Earl Long had run unsuccessfully for lieutenant governor in the first primary in 1959. There was a runoff between Morrison's choice for the job, Alexandria Mayor W. George Bowdon, Jr., and Davis's selection, former state House Speaker Clarence C. "Taddy" Aycock of Franklin in St. Mary Parish. Aycock defeated Bowdon by a margin similar to the plurality of Davis over Morrison. The defeat was Long's second for lieutenant governor. He had also lost in the 1944 primary to J. Emile Verret of Iberia Parish, who served in the second ranking position in the first Davis administration.

Davis effectively used the slogan "He's One of Us" in the gubernatorial race. Number 6 on the ballot, he assembled an intraparty ticket for other statewide constitutional officers, including Aycock for lieutenant governor, Roy R. Theriot of Abbeville for comptroller, Douglas Fowler of Coushatta for custodian of voting machines, Jack P.F. Gremillion for attorney general, Dave L. Pearce, originally from West Carroll Parish, for agriculture commissioner, Ellen Bryan Moore for register of state lands, and Rufus D. Hayes for insurance commissioner, all the latter four based in Baton Rouge. The entire Davis ticket was elected.

In their study The Louisiana Election of 1960, William C. Havard, Rudolf Heberle, and Perry H. Howard demonstrated that Davis built his second-primary victory by narrowly edging Morrison in the eastern and western extremities of south Louisiana. Davis secured the backing of organized labor and made inroads among the white, urban working class, which would have been essential to a Morrison victory. In the seven urban industrial parishes, which then comprised some 46.5 percent of the total turnout, Davis topped Morrison by 7,368 votes (50.8 percent) of the 419,537 applicable subtotal. Morrison polled 60 percent in his own Orleans Parish and 54.6 percent in adjacent suburban Jefferson Parish, but in the industrial strip and in less Roman Catholic areas, Morrison slipped. The second primary attracted 57,744 more votes than the initial stage of balloting, and analysts indicated that the lion's share of the additional ballots were segregationists who backed Davis.

In the general election held on April 19, 1960, Davis defeated Republican Francis Grevemberg, a Lafayette native, by a margin of nearly 82–17 percent. Grevemberg had been head of the state police under Democratic Governor Robert F. Kennon and had gained a reputation for fighting organized crime. He called for the origin of a two-party system for Louisiana. As the Democratic nominee, Davis faced no serious political threat and did little campaigning against Grevemberg. 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.

Davis and Dodd

In the 1959 campaign, Bill Dodd had attacked Davis ferociously: it was part of Dodd's strategy to get Davis to withdraw from the primary. "Nothing personal in his [Dodd's] heart, just a cold-blooded plan to wind up in a second primary against Morrison, who he figured could not win against anyone [else] in a runoff," said Davis in the introduction to Dodd's memoirs, Peapatch Politics: The Earl Long Era in Louisiana Politics. Dodd then endorsed Morrison in the runoff, but he had a long-term reason for this decision. Dodd planned to run for school superintendent in the 1963 primary, and he wanted to have at least the neutrality of Morrison four years thereafter.

Dodd and Davis later became close friends. In Davis' words:

Bill and I have many things in common. We share the same type of religion and boyhood background; we got our start as schoolteachers and figured prominently in public education; we both served in public life at or near the top. And I like to feel that we share a common appreciation and respect for people, all people. One of the greatest rewards in politics is meeting people. And one of the greatest and most unusual men I've ever met is Bill Dodd.

Second term (1960–1964)

Davis' appointees in the second term included outgoing State Representative Claude Kirkpatrick of Jennings, the seat of Jefferson Davis Parish, who was named to succeed Lorris M. Wimberly as the Director of Public Works. In that capacity, Kirkpatrick took the steps for a joint agreement with Texas to establish the popular Toledo Bend Reservoir, a haven for boating and fishing. Mrs. Kirkpatrick, the former Edith Killgore, a native of Claiborne Parish, headed Davis' women's campaign division for southwestern Louisiana. He appointed Alexandria businessman Morgan W. Walker, Sr., to the State Mineral Board. Walker founded a company which later became part of Continental Trailways Bus lines. Davis named as state highway director Ray Burgess of Baton Rouge, who considered running for governor in the 1963 primary. He tapped the attorney Frank Voelker, Jr., of Lake Providence, to chair the states' rights panel, the Louisiana Sovereignty Commission; Voelker left the commission to run for governor in 1963 but polled few votes.

In his second term, Davis chose veteran Representative J. Thomas Jewell of New Roads in Pointe Coupee Parish as House Speaker to succeed Earl Long's appointee, Bob Angelle. Davis secured passage of a $60 million public improvements bond issue through the State Board and Building Commission, an organization controlled by the governor. He gained legislative support from many formerly pro-Long lawmakers and cemented his hold on the traditional anti-Long bloc. He avoided defeat on any legislation that he strongly supported and was able to defeat nearly all bills with which he did not concur. He offered tacit support to the John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson national Democrats to secure the state's hold of pending offshore oil revenues. In the 1963 legislative fiscal session, he defeated efforts to procure an unpledged presidential elector slate for the 1964 general election, by which time he had been succeeded by John J. McKeithen.

Fourth place in 1971

In 1971, Davis entered another crowded Democratic gubernatorial primary field with new political prospects, but he finished in fourth place with 138,756 ballots (11.8 percent).

In a runoff election held in December 1971, U.S. Representative Edwin Washington Edwards of Crowley in Acadia Parish defeated then state Senator J. Bennett Johnston, Jr., of Shreveport for the party nomination. That vote was close: Edwards, 584,262 (50.2 percent) to Johnston's 579,774 (49.8 percent). Edwards then beat Republican David C. Treen in the state general election held on February 1, 1972. By that time, Davis' days as a politician were clearly behind him.

Toward the end of his life, longtime Democrat Davis endorsed at least two Republican candidates: state Representative Woody Jenkins of Baton Rouge for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Mary Landrieu of New Orleans in 1996 and the reelection of Governor Murphy J. "Mike" Foster, Jr., who faced only token opposition in 1999 from African-American Democratic Congressman Cleo Fields of Baton Rouge.

Political legacy

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.

During his second term, Davis built the Sunshine Bridge, the new Louisiana Governor's Mansion, and Toledo Bend Reservoir, all criticized at the time, but later recognized as beneficial to the state. Davis coordinated the pay periods of state employees, who had sometimes received their checks a week late, a particular hardship to those with low earnings.

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

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.

Personal life

Davis' first wife, the former Alvern Adams, the daughter of a physician in Shreveport, was the first lady while he was governor during both terms. Two years after her death, Davis in 1969 married Effie Juanita Carter Gordon, known thereafter as Anna Davis (February 15, 1917 – March 5, 2004), a gospel music pioneer who sold more than 30 million records in forty years of affiliation with Columbia Records. A native of Shannon near Henrietta in Clay County in north Texas, she contracted pneumonia while a teenager. David Parker "Dad" Carter (1889–1963), her father, convinced KFYO radio in Lubbock to hire the Carter Quartet to pay for Anna's medication. In 1936, the Carters began a 15-minute daily program on WBAP in Fort Worth under the name The Chuck Wagon Gang. Her first husband, William Howard Gordon (1916–1967), was the electric guitarist for the group from 1953 until his death in 1967, the same year that the first Mrs. Jimmie Davis died as well. Anna Davis lived in Nashville, Tennessee, during much of her musical career. She succumbed to acute respiratory failure in Fort Worth, where she resided in her last years. She had two sons, William and Greg Gordon, and a daughter, Vicki Owens, hence Jimmie Davis' stepchildren. Her surviving brother was Clyde Carter; her sisters, Bettye Goodwin, Ruth Ellen Yates, and Anne Everett. Anna Gordon Davis is interred beside her first husband at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Fort Worth. In 1999, she was inducted into the Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame. In 2005, she was posthumously inducted into Southern Gospel Music Association's Hall of Fame in Pigeon Forge in eastern Tennessee.

Out of office, Davis resided primarily in Baton Rouge but made numerous singing appearances, particularly in churches throughout the United States.

Davis died on November 5, 2000. He had suffered a fall in his home some ten months earlier and may have had a stroke in his last days. He is interred alongside his first wife at the Jimmie Davis Tabernacle Cemetery in his native Beech Springs community near Quitman. In addition to his second wife, Anna, Davis was survived by a son, James William "Jim" Davis (November 25, 1944 – November 2, 2012), a farmer from Newellton in Tensas Parish in northeastern Louisiana, where the former governor owned considerable property. Davis had a daughter-in-law, Diane Keahey Davis of Newellton, the widow of Jim Davis, a granddaughter, DeCarla Sunshine Davis Netterville, and her husband, Jeff, of Natchez, Mississippi, and two great-grandchildren, Summer Katlyn Netterville and Addie Grace Netterville. Jim Davis was cremated.

Davis was aged 101 years and 55 days, which made him the longest-lived of all U.S. state governors at the time of his death. Davis held this record until March 18, 2011, when Albert Rosellini of Washington achieved a greater lifespan of 101 years, 56 days.

Honors

The Jimmie Davis Bridge atop the Red River connects Shreveport and Bossier City via Louisiana Highway 511. It was named in his honor during his second term as governor.

The Jimmie Davis Tabernacle is located near Weston in Jackson Parish. The tabernacle hosts occasional gospel singing. At the site is a replica of the Davis homestead (c. 1900) and of the Peckerwood Hill Store, an old general store that served the community.

Jimmie Davis State Park is located on Caney Lake (not to be confused with Caney Lakes Recreation Area near Minden) southwest of Chatham.

Davis was posthumously inducted into the Delta Music Museum Hall of Fame in Ferriday.

Davis was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1971, the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1972, the Southern Gospel Music Association Hall of Fame in 1997 and The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2008.

In 1993, Davis was among the first thirteen inductees of the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame in Winnfield. The Hall of Fame also periodically issues the "Friends of Jimmie Davis Award". In 2005, the award was presented to then U.S. Senator Ted Stevens, an Alaska Republican, who once hosted Davis in a concert at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C. Speaking at the Louisiana Political Museum and Hall of Fame, Stevens recalled having been with both Davis and Ronald W. Reagan, when Reagan was contemplating his first run for governor of California and asked Davis for political advice. At the gathering, Stevens joined the Jimmie Davis Band in a rendition of "You Are My Sunshine".

The 2006 recipient of the "Friends of Jimmie Davis" award was the late former State Senator B.G. Dyess, a Baptist minister from Rapides Parish.

The Davis archives of papers and photographs is housed in the "You Are My Sunshine" Collection of the Linus A. Sims Memorial Library at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond.

Davis believed that his singing career enhanced his political prospects. He once told Georgia Republican Ronnie Thompson, a mayor of Macon: "If you want to have any success in politics, sing softly and carry a big guitar," a play on an old Theodore Roosevelt adage.

Filmography

Davis had several appearances in movies (usually or always as himself), including:

1942: Strictly in the Groove

1942: Riding Through Nevada

1943: Frontier Fury

1944: Cyclone Prairie Rangers

1947: Louisiana

1949: Mississippi Rhythm

1950: Square Dance Katy