John Patterson, Alabama governor from 1959 to 1963, was thrust into the Alabama political arena after the brutal murder of his father, attorney general Albert Patterson in 1954. Allowed by the Democratic Party to take his father s place and to complete the elder s goal of cleaning up corruption in his hometown Phenix City, Patterson made a young, attractive, and sympathetic candidate. Patterson for Alabama details his efforts to clean up his hometown, oppose corruption in the administration of Governor Big Jim Folsom, and to resist school desegregation. Popular on all three counts,...