Georgia

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 […]

It may be the Jordan River, but Jimmy Carter’s chief of staff’s name was pronounced “Jerden.” Born in 1944, Hamilton Jordan always loved politics. He was voted “most likely to become governor” in high school. He got close. Literally. After interning for Senator Richard Russell, he worked on Jimmy Carter’s failed try for Georgia governor […]

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, […]

Hoagy Carmichael. Ray Charles. Two musicians, one from Indiana, one from Georgia, with at least one wonderful thing in common: “Georgia on My Mind.” In 1930, Carmichael wrote the music and Stuart Gorrell the lyrics to a song some think is about Carmichael’s sister Georgia—the lyrics are ambiguous enough to be about a woman or […]

His basketball skills were so great that he was called the “human highlight film.” Dominique Wilkins was born in 1960 in France, where his father was serving in the Air Force. After playing high school basketball in North Carolina, Wilkins came to the University of Georgia in 1979 to play for coach Hugh Durham. Wilkins […]

He was called "Zig–Zag" for a reason. As a politician, Zell Miller has always been flexible. So it shouldn't have been a surprise to see the lifelong Democrat address the Republican National Convention on this date in 2004. The man who served Georgians as mayor, state senator, lieutenant governor, governor and U.S. senator was born […]

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 […]

He was the first Republican Senator from Georgia since Reconstruction, but he made sure he wouldn’t be the last. Paul Coverdell was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1939 and moved to Atlanta in his teens. After graduating from the University of Missouri, Coverdell served in the Army and returned to Atlanta to work for […]

The largest state sports hall of fame in the country is here in Georgia. The Georgia Sports Hall of Fame began in 1956, when the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association established the Georgia Prep Sports Hall of Fame, which honored high school administrators, coaches and players. The organization dropped the word “prep” in 1963, honoring collegiate […]

Georgia is called the Peach State, but the fruit has been part of our history long before there was a Georgia. Franciscan monks introduced peaches to St. Simons and Cumberland Island in the 16th century. Cherokee Indians grew peaches here in the 18th century. Raphael Moses, a Columbus planter, was marketing peaches in Georgia in […]