Enterprise native Jeffrey Smith is the featured guest at the Elba Public Library’s “Author visit and book talk” Friday at 2 p.m. in the Charlotte Clark Community Room in the library located at 406 Simmons St. in Elba.
Smith is the author of “A Pea River Progeny: Alabama’s Colorful and Controversial Governor James E. ‘Big Jim’ Folsom.” The event will include a visit to the birthplace of Jim Folsom, which is an historic landmark in Elba, located on Putnam Street. The event is free and open to the public.
A native of Enterprise, Smith is a physician and writer who earned his undergraduate and medical degrees from the University of Alabama. After completing his residency at the William S. Hall Psychiatric Institute, Smith entered private practice in Upstate South Carolina. He resides in Greer, South Carolina, with his wife, Anne. They are the parents of two grown sons, Andy and Ben.
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“A Pea River Progeny” is Smith’s 21st overall book and the 17th non-fiction publication in his “Bringing History Alive” series. The historical narratives, extensively researched, prove fact is often stranger and more compelling than fiction.
Folsom forever changed the Alabama political scene, Smith said. “The man who served as Alabama’s 43rd and 45th governor revolutionized gubernatorial campaign strategies, leaving a memorable legacy in his wake.
“Bypassing the state’s powerful Big Mule political machine and local Courthouse Rings, Big Jim took his Populist campaigns directly to the people. His determination to help the needy and disenfranchised resonated with Alabama’s overlooked common folks,” said Smith.
“Folsom’s vow to pave farm-to-market dirt roads, construct new highways and bridges, improve educational facilities, and increase old-age pensions were welcome tonics to Alabama’s farmers, day-laborers, and small business owners.”
Literally and figuratively a giant, Folsom was 6-feet, 8-inches and weighing 275 pounds. His charisma and folksy charm readily appealed to less affluent Alabamians who understood his plain talk, colloquialisms, and use of concrete imagery during campaign rallies, Smith said.
“Big Jim’s repeated outrageous antics and copious consumption of alcohol, while repeatedly condemned by seasoned politicos and Alabama’s major daily newspapers seldom troubled his core constituency. The common folks were willing to overlook Folsom’s vices because the ‘Little Man’s Big Friend’ was the only political leader who truly held their best interests close to heart.”
In the end, Folsom’s Populist political career was doomed by two major factors: his descent into full-blown alcoholism and his unwillingness to walk in lock step with white supremacists, Smith said.
“Big Jim’s one-time political protégé, George C. Wallace, soon eclipsed his mentor to become one of the 20th century’s most vitriolic segregationists. At the same time as Wallace’s statewide and national political careers soared, Folsom drifted into oblivion. Big Jim, however, refused to quit. Even when his chances of victory were nil, Folsom continued to seek elective office. Over the course of 40 years, Big Jim ran for governor nine times.”
