religion

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July 29, 1912

Clarence Jordan Born

The good work of Habitat for Humanity can be traced back to a progressive religious leader born on this day in 1912. Clarence Jordan was born in Talbotton. After studying agriculture at the University of Georgia, he became an ordained Baptist minister. Believing that God regarded people of all races as equals, Jordan combined his […]

July 11, 1733

First Jewish Settlers in Georgia

They were originally banned from the Georgia colony, but when 42 Jewish immigrants from Europe arrived in Savannah on this day in 1733, James Oglethorpe welcomed them. The migrants arrived onboard the ship William and Sarah on a trip financed by members of a London synagogue. Of the 43, 34 were Sephardic Jews, of Spanish […]

July 6, 1901

Charles McCartney

It was easy to get Charles McCartney’s goat. Born in Iowa in 1901, McCartney got hurt working for the New Deal WPA in 1935. A religious awakening led him to hitch a team of goats to a wagon and travel the country with his wife and son, dressed in goatskins, preaching the Gospel. Thus was […]

June 26, 1918

Prohibition – Georgia Ratifies 18th Amendment

Americans may love individual liberties, but there is a social engineering streak in some of us a mile wide—and when reformers can’t persuade, they try to pass laws. Prohibition in the United States goes back to the 1820s and 30s, during the religious revival known as the Second Great Awakening. Evangelical Protestants organized both temperance […]

May 7, 1738

George Whitefield

One of the most popular preachers in England and America in the 18th century first arrived in Savannah on this day in 1738. George Whitefield was born in 1714 in England, and educated at Oxford, where he met John and Charles Wesley; together they were the first leaders of the Methodist movement. After the Wesleys […]

May 8, 1915

Henry McNeal Turner

Mixing religion and politics worked out well for Henry McNeal Turner. Free-born in South Carolina in 1834, he was educated by white attorneys at a firm where he did janitorial work. Drawn to preaching, he led revivals in Macon, Athens, and Augusta. He pastored a church in Washington D.C., where he met Republican congressmen Charles […]

March 12, 1734

German Salzburgers Arrive in Georgia

Their arrival in Georgia on this date in 1734 heralded the beginning of one of the most culturally distinctive communities in Georgia. The Catholic Archbishop of Salzburg expelled German Protestants from the region in present-day Austria in 1731, and England’s King George II offered them refuge in the new colony of Georgia. Some 300 Salzburgers […]

December 16, 1769

Jesse Mercer

He wrote the section of Georgia’s constitution that guarantees religious liberty to its citizens. Jesse Mercer was born in North Carolina in 1769 and migrated to Georgia with his family as a child. A preacher’s son, he was ordained a Baptist minister and was a gifted preacher who pastored seven churches in his life, several […]

December 2, 1737

John Wesley

John Wesley lost his labor of love when he came to Georgia. The founder of the Methodist Church was born in England in 1703, becoming a strict man of God who spread the faith throughout England and America. Ordained as a priest in the Anglican Church in his mid-20s, Wesley and his brother Charles studied […]

October 14, 1964

MLK Wins the Nobel Prize

He was the youngest person 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 College, became […]

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