He would box, but he would not fight. At the height of the Vietnam War in 1967, Muhammad Ali was drafted. Declaring himself a conscientious objector, he refused to serve. With his case on appeal, Ali was banned from boxing by several of the sport’s governing bodies. He hadn’t floated like a butterfly nor stung […]
He was the leader of the band that helped spark the Southern rock movement of the 1970s. Duane Allman was born in 1946 in Nashville and his family moved to Florida when he was 11. Duane started playing guitar and he and his brother Gregg formed a band called the Allman Joys. It would be […]
She was partially deaf, suffered from depression, and had no children of her own, yet she founded the Girl Scouts of the USA. Juliette Gordon Low was born into wealth in Savannah in 1860. Two accidents in her 20s left her partially deaf and led to bouts of depression. At 26, Gordon married William Low, […]
He was the youngest person ever to win the Nobel Peace Prize. Martin Luther King, Jr., was born in Atlanta in 1929 as Michael Luther King. His father later changed their names. He grew up on Auburn Avenue near Ebenezer Baptist Church, where his grandfather and father were pastors. King graduated from Morehouse College, became […]
He became only the second African-American to serve on the U.S. Supreme Court—and one of its most controversial members. Clarence Thomas was born in Pinpoint, Georgia, in 1948 and was raised by his grandfather as a devout Catholic. He planned to join the priesthood but left the seminary after encountering racial prejudice. Instead, he graduated […]
There were many firsts in his family. Born in Dallas, Texas in 1938,Maynard Holbrook Jackson, Jr. moved to Atlanta when he was 8. His Georgia roots ran deep. His grandfather, John Wesley Dobbs, founded the Georgia Voters League. His mother was the first African-American with an Atlanta public library card. His aunt Mattiwilda was the […]
He was billed as the world’s strongest man and, during the Cold War, a convenient symbol of American power. Paul Anderson was born in Toccoa, Georgia and overcame Bright’s disease as a child. A football scholarship got him to Furman University, but he quit and began lifting weights instead. Anderson discovered that he had extraordinary […]
Lyman Hall was an ordained minister, a doctor and one of three Georgians to sign the Declaration of Independence, quite a resume for a man born in Connecticut in 1747. Hall was from old New England stock and graduated from Yale. He abandoned the congregational ministry for medicine and moved South, eventually settling in Georgia […]
He would tell Yankee immigrants who found fault with the South: “Delta is ready when you are.” Lewis Grizzard was born in Fort Benning and grew up in Moreland. He studied journalism at the University of Georgia. After quickly realizing he didn’t belong in Chicago, Grizzard returned to Atlanta to write a humorous regional column […]
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 […]
