He took a Bible with him into the ring. Dubbed the “Georgia Deacon,” he was the first black boxer to be middleweight champion of the world. Theodore “Tiger” Flowers was born in Camilla in 1895 and started boxing at 18. Flowers was the first black boxer after Jack Johnson to fight for a world title, […]
He was one of the most influential black leaders of the 20th century, and he taught in Atlanta for almost 25 years. W.E.B. Du Bois was born in Massachusetts in 1868 and received a PhD. from Harvard in 1895—the same year Booker T. Washington made his famous “Atlanta Compromise” speech, calling for accommodation rather than […]
He courageously put his life on the line many times during the civil rights movement and has become one of the most respected members of Congress. John Lewis was born to sharecroppers in Alabama, in 1940. He encountered the ugliness and brutality of racism while participating in sit-ins as a student at Fisk University in […]
“Take My Hand, Precious Lord,” one of the most famous gospel songs ever written, was inspired by the personal tragedy of its author. Thomas Dorsey was born in Villa Rica in 1899 and grew up listening to shape-note singing and spirituals in church. He was also influenced by blues icons Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith. […]
Georgia’s first African-American congressman was born a slave. Jefferson Franklin Long was born in Alabama in 1836. His master sold him to a man in Macon. Long taught himself to read and write while setting type for the Macon newspaper. Long attended Macon’s African Methodist Episcopal Church and was deeply influenced by Henry McNeal Turner, […]
Few presidential acts have had more impact upon the arc of history than the Emancipation Proclamation issued by President Abraham Lincoln on this day in 1863. It transformed a war for union into a crusade for human freedom. Emancipation had not initially been a U.S. war aim. As the Union death toll mounted however, support […]
A Georgia native founded the most influential black newspaper of the 20th century. Robert Sengstacke Abbott was born on St. Simon’s island in 1868 and raised in Savannah. He attended law school in Chicago. When Abbott couldn’t find a job as a lawyer, he turned to journalism and founded the Chicago Defender. Within a decade […]
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 […]
She was the first African-American woman elected to Congress from Georgia. Cynthia McKinney was born in Atlanta to Billy McKinney, one of Atlanta’s first African-American police officers and a longtime member of the state legislature. Her father was known for his fiery spirit, and his daughter was no different. In 1988, Cynthia followed her father […]
When Robert Benham was appointed the first African American on the Georgia Supreme Court, it was only one of a long line of firsts. Benham was born in Cartersville in 1946. He majored in political science at Tuskegee University and attended Harvard before graduating from the University of Georgia's School of Law in 1970. After […]