He was one of the greatest – if not the greatest – running backs to ever play the game of football. Jim Brown was born on St. Simons in 1936. At Syracuse University, Brown excelled in five sports. The NFL’s Cleveland Browns drafted him in 1957 and he led the league in rushing in 8 […]
Knucksie won more games after age 40 than any pitcher in Major League history. Phil Niekro, one of the most popular Atlanta Braves of all time, was born in Ohio in 1939. He made his big league debut with the Milwaukee Braves in 1964 before they moved to Atlanta in ‘66. He earned that nickname […]
After years of planning and two months crossing the Atlantic, James Oglethorpe and 114 colonists climbed 40 feet up the bluff from the Savannah River on this day in 1733 and founded the colony of Georgia. George II granted the Georgia trustees a charter for the colony a year earlier. The trustees’ motto was Non […]
It started with Deliverance in 1972. From there, Burt Reynolds “delivered” a lot of film business to the state of Georgia. As he was becoming Hollywood’s biggest box office draw for five years running, Georgia became number three in the nation for film production behind only New York and California. Burton Leon Reynolds, Jr. was […]
She was born in Eatonton in 1944 and at age 8 she was blinded in one eye by a BB gun fired by her brother, a traumatic event that crippled her self-confidence. She was eventually homecoming queen and valedictorian at Butler-Baker High School. But it was Alice Walker’s searing literary portraits of African-American life and […]
Before Vince Dooley became synonymous with Georgia football, there was Wally Butts. Known as the “Little Round Man,” Butts was born in Milledgeville and earned scholarships in three sports at Mercer University. Butts became the University of Georgia’s head football coach in 1939. Over 22 seasons he led the Bulldogs to 140 wins, four SEC […]
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, […]
His was a voice of moderation during one of the South’s most racially divisive periods. Ralph McGill was born in Tennessee in 1898. His sports columns in the Nashville Banner caught the eye of Atlanta Constitution editor Clark Howell, who hired McGill in 1929. By 1941, McGill was the paper’s editor, and over the next […]
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 […]
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 […]
