James Houston Davis (September 11, 1899 – November 5, 2000), better known as Jimmie Davis, was a noted singer of both sacred and popular songs who served two nonconsecutive terms as the 47th Governor of Louisiana (1944–1948 and 1960–1964). Davis was a nationally popular country music and gospel singer from the 1930's into the 1960's, occasionally recording and performing as late as the early 1990's. He is a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and The Louisiana Music Hall of Fame.
Davis was born in 1899 to a sharecropping couple, the former Sarah Elizabeth Works and Samuel Jones Davis, in the now-ghost town of Beech Springs near Quitman in Jackson Parish. The family was so poor that young Jimmie did not have a bed in which to sleep until he was nine years old.
He graduated from Beech Springs High School and Soule Business College, New Orleans campus. The late U.S. Representative Otto Ernest Passman, a Louisiana Democrat, also graduated from Soule, but from the Bogalusa campus. Davis received his bachelor's degree in history from the Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville. He received a master's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Davis's 1927 master's thesis examines the intelligence levels of different races, and is titled Comparative Intelligence of Whites, Blacks and Mulattoes.
Davis taught history (and, unofficially, yodeling) for a year at the former Dodd College for Girls in Shreveport during the late 1920s. He was hired by the college president, Monroe Elmon Dodd, who was also the pastor of the large First Baptist Church of Shreveport and a pioneer radio preacher.
Davis was born in 1899 to a sharecropping couple, the former Sarah Elizabeth Works and Samuel Jones Davis, in the now-ghost town of Beech Springs near Quitman in Jackson Parish. The family was so poor that young Jimmie did not have a bed in which to sleep until he was nine years old.
He graduated from Beech Springs High School and Soule Business College, New Orleans campus. The late U.S. Representative Otto Ernest Passman, a Louisiana Democrat, also graduated from Soule, but from the Bogalusa campus. Davis received his bachelor's degree in history from the Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville. He received a master's degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. Davis's 1927 master's thesis examines the intelligence levels of different races, and is titled Comparative Intelligence of Whites, Blacks and Mulattoes.
Davis taught history (and, unofficially, yodeling) for a year at the former Dodd College for Girls in Shreveport during the late 1920s. He was hired by the college president, Monroe Elmon Dodd, who was also the pastor of the large First Baptist Church of Shreveport and a pioneer radio preacher.
