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 […]
He was the first Republican governor elected in Georgia in more than 130 years, but George “Sonny” Perdue III began his political life as a Democrat. Perdue was a baby boomer, born in 1946 in Perry, Georgia. He played quarterback at Warner Robins High School and was a walk-on at the University of Georgia, where […]
It was an international crisis that tarnished America’s global prestige and helped make Jimmy Carter a one-term president. The Iranian Hostage Crisis began in 1979 when Iranian militants seized the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking 52 Americans hostage. It didn’t end for more than a year. Iran’s Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah of Iran, who […]
She was the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia. Cynthia McKinney was born in Atlanta to Billy McKinney, one of Atlanta’s first African-American police officers and a longtime member of the state legislature. Her father was known for his fiery spirit, and his daughter was no different. In 1988, Cynthia followed her father […]
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’s the only Georgian to ever be elected president of the United States, Jimmy Carter was born in Plains and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. He’s the only Georgian ever elected President of the United States. Jimmy Carter was born in Plains and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy. To his wife Rosalynn’s dismay, […]
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 Nineteenth Amendment granted women the vote. Napier was a schoolteacher and […]
An ambulance driver, a lawyer, and one of the first women 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, then graduated from Atlanta Law School, which her father helped found. She […]
It was a major blow to the rights of Black Georgians. At the same time, a new phrase was born – the grandfather clause. In 1907, Georgia Governor Hoke Smith, who had campaigned promising to disenfranchise Black voters, signed an act that would amend Georgia’s constitution and impose a literacy test as a requirement for […]
