Coastal Plain

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, […]

Truman Capote made the Clutter family murders in Kansas famous in his book In Cold Blood. Georgia’s counterpart was the Alday family murders, one of the most notorious cases in Georgia history. Carl Isaacs and two other men escaped from a Maryland prison in May 1973 and picked up Carl’s 15-year-old brother Billy. They killed […]

“Pop music is sex and you have to hit them in the face with it.” So said the Rolling Stones’ manager as they rolled onto the music scene in 1962. They were the vanguard of the British Invasion, a new breed of pop stars influenced by Elvis and Chuck Berry. The Stones made the Beatles […]

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. considered it one of his few failures. The Albany Movement in the early 1960s had a simple but formidable objective: the desegregation of an entire community, from bus stations to lunch counters. A coalition mobilized thousands and brought national attention to southwest Georgia, particularly after Dr. King’s arrival in December […]

“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 […]

Her most powerful weapon is her voice. It always has been. Bernice Johnson Reagon was born in Albany. The Baptist minister's daughter grew up immersed in the power and glory of spirituals.  Reagon's activism began at Albany State in 1961. She was arrested for participating in a civil rights protest sponsored by SNCC, the Student Non–Violent […]

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 […]

“Yes, I’m a real southern boy,” he told reporters. “I’ve got a red neck, white socks, and drink Blue Ribbon beer.” Billy Carter was born in Plains in 1937. After their father’s death, Billy resented his older brother Jimmy returning home to run the family business and joined the Marines instead. Billy ran the business […]

They were soul men long before the Blues Brothers. Florida native Samuel Moore and Georgian David Prater were gospel music veterans when they joined together in 1961 to form the rhythm and blues duo Sam and Dave. From 1965 to ’68 the duo worked at Stax Records in Memphis with Songwriters Isaac Hayes and David […]

He was hailed as a bold new Southern writer in the Southern Gothic tradition, with his books populated by strange characters in a brutal and darkly humorous South. It was a world Harry Crews knew well. Born in Bacon County in 1935 to poor farmers, Crews grew up with a violent and drunken uncle who […]