[1] Persons held various jobs, working for the Farm Bureau and for IBM in Ithaca, New York, before returning to Montgomery to run a service station and open a radio parts store.

[2] Persons would go on to serve on the board of directors for the National Association of Broadcasters from 1935 to 1939, and as the chief radio consultant of the Office of War Information from 1942 to 1943.

[1] Persons ran for Governor again in 1950, seeking to avoid conflict between the white supremacist Dixiecrat loyalists and the national Democratic party.

While campaigning, Persons gained notoriety by touring the state in a two-seat helicopter, prompting one opponent to dub him "the man from Mars".

[4] His first official act as governor was to call a meeting of the Auburn University board to trustees to fire football coach Earl Brown and replace him with Shug Jordan.

He reformed the prison system, placing it under a new supervisory board and ending fiscal mismanagement, and abolishing corporal punishment, deriding it as barbaric.

[1] Persons also signed "right-to-work" legislation that limited union activity, and established new voting qualifications aimed at restricting African Americans.