Twenty-first century

March 2, 2005

Leah Ward Sears

She has been superior in a lot of courts. Leah Ward Sears was born into a military family in Germany in 1955. Her family eventually settled in Savannah. A graduate of Emory Law, Sears was working at an Atlanta law firm when Mayor Andrew Young appointed her to Atlanta’s traffic court. In 1988, at 32, […]

February 4, 2005

Ossie Davis

As an actor, and as an activist, Ossie Davis made his mark. Born Rayford Chatman Davis in 1917 in Cogdell, Georgia, in Clinch County, he got his nickname from the way his mother pronounced his initials. Davis served in Africa in World War II, and made his Broadway debut in 1946 in the play Jeb, […]

February 2, 2002

Arthur Blank

From DIY to the NFL, Arthur Blank has scored big. Born in Flushing, New York In 1942, he went to work for his father’s small pharmaceutical company. He wound up in Los Angeles as CFO of a home improvement company called Handy Dan. Bernie Marcus was CEO. Fired by that chain in 1978, the enterprising […]

January 5, 2009

Griffin Bell

He may be best remembered as Jimmy Carter’s Attorney General, but Griffin Bell was a giant in the legal profession long before that. Born in rural Sumter County in 1918, Bell went to law school at Mercer University. In 1958, he was working for the Atlanta firm that became King & Spalding when he was […]

November 23, 2005

Georgia Aquarium

It was a whale of a deal for Georgia. It holds 10 million gallons of water and is the largest one of its kind in the world, and it was a gift to the people of Georgia. The Georgia Aquarium opened in 2005, thanks to a $250 million gift from Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus. […]