War can make or break a man. The Civil War made John Brown Gordon. Born in Upson County in 1832, he was managing his father’s coalmines in northwest Georgia when the war began. Although he lacked any military experience, Gordon was elected captain of the Raccoon Roughs, a company of mountain men, and he rose […]
He was the author of the Republican revolution of 1994—and one of the most powerful and polarizing leaders in Georgia history. Newton Leroy Gingrich was born in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, in 1943. With his father stationed at Fort Benning, Gingrich graduated from Baker High School in Columbus. He earned a history degree from Emory and a […]
Can you imagine Saturday afternoons in autumn without college football in Georgia? It almost happened. On this day in 1897, UGA player Richard Von Gammon was fatally injured in a game with the University of Virginia. There had been a nationwide call for a ban on the violent sport, and Von Gammon’s death galvanized football’s […]
He would box, but he would not fight. At the height of the Vietnam War in 1967, Muhammad Ali was drafted. Declaring himself a conscientous objector, he refused to serve. With his case on appeal, Ali was banned from boxing by several of the sports governing bodies. He hadn’t floated like a butterfly or stung […]
He was an ordained minister, a doctor, and one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence, quite a resume for a man born in Connecticut in 1747. Lyman Hall was from old New England stock and graduated from Yale. He abandoned the congregational ministry for medicine and moved south, eventually settling in Georgia […]
There were many firsts in his family. Born in Dallas, Texas, in 1938, Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr., moved to Atlanta when he was eight. His Georgia roots ran deep. His grandfather, John Wesley Dobbs, founded the Georgia Voters League. His mother was the first African-American with an Atlanta Public Library card. His aunt Mattiwilda was […]
He became only the second African(-) American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court – and one of its most controversial members. Clarence Thomas was born in Pin Point, Georgia, in 1948 and was raised by his grandfather as a devout Catholic. He planned to join the priesthood but left the seminary after encountering racial […]
He was one of the youngest persons ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929 as Michael Luther King. His father later changed their names. He grew up on Auburn Avenue near Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his grandfather and father were pastors. King graduated from Morehouse […]
Clashes with the Ku Klux Klan began Joseph Lowery’s lifelong fight for equality. The man who became one of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s, chief lieutenants was born in Huntsville, Alabama. Early encounters with bigotry would shape the direction of his life as a Methodist minister. Inspired by Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, Lowery […]
Her most powerful weapon is her voice. It always has been. Bernice Johnson Reagon was born in Albany. This Baptist minister’s daughter grew up immersed in the power and glory of spirituals. Reagon’s activism began at Albany State in 1961. She was arrested for participating in a civil rights protest sponsored by SNCC, the Student […]
