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End of the White Primary
It forced Georgia to allow African-Americans to vote in the Democratic primary. But, the Democrats had other ideas…they wanted to make their primary’s a private club. Governor Ellis Arnall prevented that from happening, and the white primary neared its end. But, it would still be a struggle. -
Herman Talmadge
Herman's Life
Talmadge, a Democrat, was governor at a time of political transition in the state, and he served in the Senate during a time of great political change in the nation as well. As a member of the southern bloc of the Senate, Talmadge was a staunch opponent of civil rights legislation, but he began to reach out to black voters in the 1970s -
Brown vs. Board of Education
Brown vs. Board
The U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education (1954) is one of the most pivotal opinions ever rendered by that body. This landmark decision highlights the U.S. Supreme Court’s role in affecting changes in national and social policy. Often when people think of the case, they remember a little girl whose parents sued so that she could attend an all-white school in her neighborhood -
Georgia State Flag
State Flag History
A strong impetus for change, however, was the 1954 and 1955 Brown v. Board of Education decisions, which were bitterly denounced by most Georgia political leaders. The entire 1956 legislative session was devoted to Governor Marvin Griffin's platform of "massive resistance" to federally imposed integration of public schools. In this charged atmosphere, legislation to put the Confederate battle flag on Georgia's state flag sailed through the General Assembly. -
Sibley Commission
Sibley 1960 Governor Ernest Vandiver Jr., forced to decide between closing public schools or complying with a federal order to desegregate them, tapped state representative George Busbee to introduce legislation creating the General Assembly Committee on Schools. Commonly known as the Sibley Commission, the committee was charged with gathering state residents' sentiments regarding desegregation and reporting back to the governor. -
Martin Luther King Jr.
Martin's Life
Martin Luther King Jr. was a Baptist minister and social activist, who led the Civil Rights Movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968 -
Benjamin Mays
Benjamiin's lifeA distinguished African American minister, educator, scholar, and social activist, Benjamin Mays is perhaps best known as the longtime president of Morehouse College in Atlanta. He was also a significant mentor to civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and was among the most articulate and outspoken critics of segregation before the rise of the modern civil rights movement in the United States -
SNCC
SNCCThe Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), formed to give younger blacks more of a voice in the civil rights movement, became one of the movement’s more radical branches. In the wake of the early sit-ins at lunch counters closed to blacks, which started in February 1960 in Greensboro, North Carolina, Ella Baker, then director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), helped set up the first meeting of what became SNCC. She was concerned that SCLC, led by the Reverend Dr -
Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter
UGA
In Georgia this meant the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, which did not admit African Americans, so Hunter applied to several midwestern schools. During her last year at Turner, however, Hunter was approached by a group of Atlanta's black civic leaders who were looking for talented students to challenge segregation in Georgia's colleges and universities. After first visiting Georgia State College of Business Administration -
Albany Movement
Jail According to traditional accounts the Albany Movement began in fall 1961 and ended in summer 1962. It was the first mass movement in the modern civil rights era to have as its goal the desegregation of an entire community, and it resulted in the jailing of more than 1,000 African Americans in Albany and surrounding rural counties. Martin Luther King Jr. was drawn into the movement in December 1961 when hundreds of black protesters, including himself, were arrested in one week, but eight months l -
March on Washington
MarchOn August 28, 1963, more than 200,000 Americans gathered in Washington, D.C., for a political rally known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Organized by a number of civil rights and religious groups, the event was designed to shed light on the political and social challenges African Americans continued to face across the country. The march, which became a key moment in the growing struggle for civil rights in the United States, culminated in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have a Drea -
Civil Rights Act
BillIn 1964 Congress passed Public Law 88-352 (78 Stat. 241). The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The word "sex" was added at the last moment. According to the West Encyclopedia of American Law, Representative Howard W. Smith (D-VA) added the word. -
Andrew Young
YoungWhile in Congress, Young championed the causes of poor and working-class Americans and opposed efforts to increase military budgets. He supported the 1976 presidential campaign of Jimmy Carter, and in 1977 Carter named Young ambassador to the United Nations -
Lester Maddox
LesterMaddox would both shun and cultivate this reputation at various points throughout his career. After losing a year-long legal battle in which he challenged the constitutionality of the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Maddox elected to close his restaurant rather than desegregate. -
Maynard Jackson
MayorAs mayor, one of Jackson's main priorities was to ensure that minority businesses received more municipal contracts, and he succeeded in raising the proportion from less than 1 percent to more than 35 percent. His crowning achievement was building the massive new terminal at Hartsfield Atlanta International Airport with significant minority participation, and in his own words, "ahead of schedule and under budget
