Georgia, state, United States: The Struggle for Racial Equality

The Struggle for Racial Equality

In 1941, Gov. Eugene Talmadge caused nationwide commotion by discharging three educators in the state university system alleged to have advocated racial equality in the schools. The state university system lost its accreditation for a time as a result of Talmadge's action. Talmadge was defeated in the 1942 Democratic primary by Ellis G. Arnall.

Under Arnall's administration, Georgia became the first state to grant the vote to 18-year-olds, and in 1946 (on the strength of a U.S. Supreme Court decision) blacks voted for the first time in the Georgia Democratic primary. Among Arnall's other administrative acts was the adoption of a new constitution in Aug., 1945. The 1945 constitution, which, in amended form, is still in effect in the state, contained a provision for Georgia's notorious county-unit system. This system for nominating state officials in Democratic primaries led to the political control of urban areas by sparsely populated rural areas.

The integration of public schools, following the 1954 Supreme Court decision, was strenuously opposed by many Georgians. However, in 1961 the legislature abandoned a “massive resistance” policy, and Georgia became the first state in the deep South to proceed with integration without a major curtailment of its public school system. Racial tensions persisted, however, and in May, 1970, racial disorders broke out in Augusta.

Georgia's county-unit system (held constitutional by the Supreme Court in Apr., 1950) was abolished by federal court order in 1962. In 1972, the Georgian Andrew Young became the first African American elected to the U.S. Congress; he later became mayor of Atlanta. Jimmy Carter, a Democrat and the 39th president of the United States (1977–81), had been governor of Georgia from 1971 to 1975; his administration brought attention to the state, whose urban centers, especially Atlanta, were beginning to experience rapid growth. Today, roughly one half of the jobs in Georgia are in the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is sprawling into formerly rural districts, highlighting the cultural and economic gaps between Georgia's rural and urban areas.

Zell Miller, a conservative democrat, was elected governor in 1990 and reelected in 1994. Miller is best known for successfully advocating for the "two strikes and you're out" law leading to life imprisonment for certain classes of repeat offenders. Miller subsequently was appointed by his success, Roy E. Barnes (1999-2003), to the U.S. Senate (2000-05) and was subsequently elected to serve one term. Barnes lost his 2002 reelection bid to Republican Sonny Perdue, and Republicans have held the governorship since then. Brian Kemp, a conservative, was elected in 2018. Georgia was in the news following charges by Donald Trump and his allies of irregularities in its election tallies after Joseph Biden narrowly won the state's presidential election. Considerable pressure was placed on the state's attorney general, Brad Raffensperger, to overturn the results, and an audit and recount were held, but each validated the election's original results.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
The Struggle for Racial Equality
The Long Aftermath of the Civil War
Cotton and the Confederacy
Statehood
Oglethorpe's Colony
Early Exploration and Conflicting Claims
Government, Politics, and Higher Education
Economy
Geography
Facts and Figures

See more Encyclopedia articles on: U.S. Political Geography