She was a non-conformist before that became stylish. Eliza Frances “Fanny” Andrews was born in Washington, Georgia, in 1840. Among the first students to attend LaGrange Female College, she was fluent in both Latin and French. She was fiercely independent. Though her father was a staunch Unionist, Andrews was an equally strong secessionist. As her […]
“Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” one of the most famous gospel songs ever written, was inspired by the personal tragedy of its author. Thomas Dorsey was born in Villa Rica in 1899 and grew up listening to shape-note singing and spirituals in church. He was also influenced by blues icons Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. […]
He streaked to the top of the charts. Singer-songwriter Ray Stevens was born Harold Ray Ragsdale in Clarksdale, Georgia. He attended high school in Albany and soon after got a recording contract in Nashville. In 1970, Stevens hit #1 and won a Grammy with the mainstream “Everything is Beautiful”, but it was the unorthodox songs […]
He was 14 when he saw Jackie Robinson play, and knew he wanted to play major league baseball. There were few better. Henry Louis Aaron was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1934. During a 23-year career with the Milwaukee and Atlanta Braves and the Milwaukee Brewers, Aaron won the National League’s Most Valuable Player and […]
He was the large half of the duo that was widely considered the greatest comedy team in film history, always complaining, “This is another fine mess you’ve gotten us into.” Norvell Hardy was born in Harlem, Georgia, in 1892, and grew up in Madison, Covington, Athens, and Milledgeville. He was working at a theater when […]
You may not have known his name, but you couldn’t miss his voice, especially when he played a small cartoon bear — and that was just one of over 150 movies and TV shows Sterling Holloway did. Holloway was born in 1905 in Cedartown. He attended the Georgia Military Academy before moving on to New […]
Her fame rested on one indelible performance: a slave who lacked the midwifery skills to help Melanie Hamilton. Thelma McQueen was born in Florida in 1911. She moved to Augusta after her father abandoned the family. She studied acting, dance, and music in New York. Her nickname derived from a performance in the Butterfly Ballet […]
It’s one of Georgia’s great architectural treasures, and it opened on Christmas day in 1929. The Fabulous Fox Theatre on the corner of Peachtree and Ponce de Leon was originally built as the meeting hall for the Shriners, which explains its Moorish design. The initial cost was $2.2 million but it took the money of […]
“A life is not important except in the impact it has on other lives.” The words of baseball great and civil rights pioneer Jackie Robinson, who was born to a family of sharecroppers in Cairo, Georgia, in 1919. Robinson became the first athlete ever at UCLA to earn letters in four different sports. During World […]
It cost three men their lives and provided the legal basis for the Trail of Tears, the forcible removal of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia. The Treaty of New Echota was signed on this day in 1835, ceding Cherokee land to the U.S. in exchange for compensation. The treaty had been negotiated by a Cherokee […]
