It was a giant step forward for Georgia women on this day in 1922. Viola Napier of Bibb County and Bessie Kempton Crowell of Fulton County became the first women elected to the General Assembly. They hit the milestone only two years after the 19th Amendment granted women the right to vote. Napier was […]
On this day in 1964, sculptors began taking a third crack at the Confederate Memorial Carving on Stone Mountain, first proposed 50 years earlier by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Renowned sculptor Gutzon Borglum envisioned seven central figures leading an army of thousands. But World War I and funding problems delayed work. Artistic disagreements […]
An ambulance driver, a lawyer and the first woman elected to Congress from Georgia* — all stops along the way for Helen Douglas Mankin. Mankin was the daughter of two lawyers. She drove an ambulance in France during World War I, and then graduated from Atlanta Law School, which her father helped found. She and […]
He would serve under the Stars and Stripes and the Stars and Bars in major wars. Born in Augusta, Joseph Wheeler graduated near the bottom of his class at West Point. He earned the nickname “Fighting Joe” in the U.S. Army on the western frontier. But his courage and skill as a Confederate cavalry commander […]
It was touted as one of the finest hotels between New York and Miami, but its owner refused to rent rooms to black patrons. The Heart of Atlanta Motel, which opened on this day in 1956, would figure into the heart of a landmark civil rights case. Located at 255 Courtland Street, the motel was […]
He was called "Zig–Zag" for a reason. As a politician, Zell Miller has always been flexible. So it shouldn't have been a surprise to see the lifelong Democrat address the Republican National Convention on this date in 2004. The man who served Georgians as mayor, state senator, lieutenant governor, governor and U.S. senator was born […]
