biography
| name: |
Folsom, James (Elisha)
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| sex:
| male
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| lived:
| (1908–87)
|
| biography:
| US governor, born near Elba, Alabama, USA. After serving in the merchant marine, he directed the Alabama Relief Administration (1933–6), then formed the Emergency Aid and Insurance Co (1937–46). As Democratic governor of Alabama (1947–50, 1955–9), ‘Big Jim’ was a racial moderate, who legally removed the Ku Klux Klan's hoods and met secretly with Martin Luther King Jr to resolve the Montgomery bus boycott. He later returned to his insurance business. |
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