strongly advocated white supremacy and played a key role in the adoption of constitutional provisions that disenfranchised Blacks and poor whites following brief political gains by the Populist Party. He supported lynchings, stating that lynching Black men accused of rape was justified. Briefly, during his governorship, he opposed lynching, preferring the judicial process. Jelks opposed education for Blacks, believing it took them from their "labors in the field" and led to idleness, vagrancy, and crime. On at least one occasion in 1902, he pardoned members of a lynch mob convicted of murder. In a newspaper report from 1905, he defended the murder of a Black man accused of rape. When Jelks left office in 1907, he had served longer than any governor before him. He left a cash balance in the treasury of $1.8 million, which he recommended be spent on education. Later he organized the Protective Life Insurance Company in Birmingham, Alabama and served as its first president. He was a delegate to the 1912 Democratic Convention in Baltimore, Maryland, that nominated Woodrow Wilson to the presidency. Jelks died on December 13, 1931. References External links Alabama Business Hall of Fame – Governor Jelks Alabama Archives – Governor Jelks 1855 births 1931 deaths Alabama state senators Governors of Alabama Mercer University alumni Democratic Party governors of Alabama People from Macon County, Alabama American white supremacists