Ed Jackson and Charles Pou

Carl Vinson Institute of Government

The University of Georgia

January 15

1751 Following popular elections called by Georgia's Trustees, a Provincial Assembly convened in Savannah. The assembly was an advisory -- rather than governmental -- body. For instance, it could not pass laws or appropriate money. Rather it was a forum for determining how Georgia colonists felt and for making recommendations to the Trustees on policies and laws for Georgia. Still, it was the first form of representative government for the colony.

1796 Jared Irwin was inaugurated as governor of Georgia for the first of two terms.

1821 Military officer Lafayette McLaws was born in Augusta, Ga. Attending West Point, he graduated as a second lieutenant in the U.S. Army in 1842, subsequently fighting in the Mexican War. Following Georgia's secession, McLaws resigned from the Army in March 1861. He then helped organize the 10th Georgia, serving as a colonel in June 1861. The following September, he was promoted to brigadier general, serving under Magruder in the Peninsula campaign. In May 1862, McLaws was promoted to major general and commanded McLaws' Division under Longstreet in the battles of Seven Days, Second Manassas, Sharpsburg, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Knoxville. In Dec. 1863, Longstreet relieved McLaws of command on the grounds that the Georgian exhibited "a want of confidence and plans." Pres. Jefferson Davis subsequently restored McLaws to command and transferred him to Georgia to prepare for the defense of Savannah. His final duty was under Joseph E. Johnston in the Carolinas. After the war, McLaws was an insurance agent, internal revenue collector, and postmaster. He died July 24, 1897 in Savannah, Ga.

1852 Gov. Howell Cobb singed an act creating Taylor County as Georgia's 99th county. Created from portions of Macon, Marion, and Talbot counties, the new county was named in honor of Pres. Zachary Taylor, who died in office in 1850.

1893 Author and actress Fanny Kemble died in London. [See Nov. 27 entry for biographical information.]

1929 Civil-rights leader and clergyman Martin Luther King, Jr. was born in Atlanta, Georgia. He attended Atlanta's public schools before entering Morehouse College at age fifteen. Upon graduation from Morehouse, King decided to follow his father into the ministry, studying at Crozier Theological Seminary in Pennsylvania before earning his doctorate at Boston University. While in Boston King met and married Coretta Scott. In 1954 he began his ministerial work at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama The following year he was thrust into national prominence as he helped organize and became an important spokesperson for the Montgomery bus boycott. Here his famous rhetoric and philosophy of non-violence were put to the test; attributes which he carried with him throughout his life despite sometime bitter and often violent resistance.

King helped found the Southern Christain Leadership Conference in 1957, and served as its president for the next eleven years. He traveled throughout the South preaching the philosophy of non-violent resistance and offering assistance and advice to desegregation efforts. In 1959 King visited India, homeland of Mahatma Ghandi, whose ideas of non-violence were very formative to King's own. The following year King returned home to Atlanta as associate pastor at his father's Ebenezer Baptist Church. In this role, the younger King was free to devote most of his time and efforts to the SCLC and the civil rights movement. That same year "sit-ins" had begun in Greensboro, N.C., and the SCLC financed a conference on the sit-ins. Out of this grew the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee. King returned to Atlanta to lead sit-ins at Rich's department store, for which he was arrested. Later he and the SCLC targeted Albany, Ga. for desegregation efforts and attempts to increase black voter registration. Little success was won in Albany, but King learned valuable lessons for his next target.

That target was Birmingham, Ala. Here the disciplined, nonviolent reaction of protestors to organized police brutality received national acclaim. During this time, King penned his famous "Letter from a Birmingham Jail." By 1963, King was a national figure. He addressed large crowds in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit -- but the highlight of the year was the march on Washington by 250,000 protestors. Here, at one end of the reflection pond, King delivered his immortal "I Have a Dream" speech. For his work, King was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year for 1963. The culmination of his honors occurred in December 1964 when he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

In 1965, King led the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., which helped secure passage of the Voting Rights Act. King continued his efforts at desegregation and began to spread his ideas of nonviolent resistance to areas outside the South over the next few years. Plans were nearing completion for a Poor People's March on Washington in 1968 when King turned aside to visit Memphis in support of striking black sanitation workers. Here, King stayed in the Lorraine Motel. On April 4, while King was relaxing on the balcony outside his motel room, a shot rang out from the distance striking down the 39-year-old civil rights leader.

1954 On the grounds of the former State Normal School for Teachers in Athens, U.S. Navy officials held ceremonies commissioning the Naval Supply Corps School. The school formerly was located in New Jersey, but the Navy had decided to move it to a new location. Thanks to the efforts of Georgia Senator Richard B. Russell and Congressman Carl Vinson, the Navy chose Athens.

1963 Attorney and former state representative Carl Sanders was inaugurated as governor of Georgia.
 
 

In Their Own Words on This Day. . .

1766 As a result of the French-Indian War, Britain incurred large expenditures defending the American colonies. In an effort to recover some of these costs, Parliament in 1765 passed the Stamp Act -- the first direct tax on American colonists. The law required all legal documents, newspapers, advertisements, and many other printed items used in the American colonies to bear a British revenue stamp showing that a tax had been paid. Moreover, before printing documents, colonists had to use blank paper already bearing a revenue stamp showing that the required tax had been paid -- and this was only available from local British officials. Opposition to the Stamp Act in the colonies was immediate and angry, though initially it was less vocal than in the other colonies. In fact, there appears to have been limited use of stamped paper relative to the port at Savannah -- which would make Georgia the only American colony where the Stamp Act was administered. Nevertheless, opposition quickly grew in Georgia, as royal governor James Wright described in a letter to the British Board of Trade:

". . . I think it my Indispensable Duty to give your Lordships a Short detail of Some things that have happened here relative to the Stamp Duty affair. Since I had the Honor to write last on Thursday, the 2nd instant about 3 o'clock in the afternoon I received intelligence by the two Captains of Rangers, Milledge & Powell, that the Liberty Boys, as they call themselves, had assembled together to the Number of about 200 & were gathering fast and that Some of them had declared they were determined to go to the Fort & break open the Store & take out & destroy the Stamp't Papers &c. Upon which I immediately ordered them to get their Men together and armed myself & went to the guard House. And having got together to the Number of about 54 Marched to the Fort & had the Papers taken out of the Store & Carried in a Cart to the guard House Escorted by the above Number of Rangers. This was done my Lords between 4 & 5 o'clock in the afternoon and without any disturbance or opposition tho there was at that time at Least 200 assembled together.

But my Lords appearances & threats were Such that I have not had less than 40 Men on duty every Night Since that to Protect the [stamped] Papers, or I am Confident they would have been destroyed, and for the 1st four nights I had not my Cloathes off. . . . And I have had the Papers distributed & Lodged in all the different Offices relative to the Shipping & Opening our Ports, but understand my Lords that the People in General are determined not to apply for any other Papers untill His Majesties Pleasure is known on the Petitions Sent from the Colonies. . . .

. . . No Pains my Lords has been Spared in the Northern Colonies to Spirit up and inflame the People here, and a Spirit of Faction & Sedition has been Stirred up throughout this Province, and Partys of armed Men actually assembled themselves together . . . .

The People in general my Lords . . . have been Misled & Influenced to a degree of Madness, by the Seditious & Rebellious acts & Publications in the other Colonies. . . ."

Source: Kenneth Coleman and Milton Ready (eds.), Colonial Records of the State of Georgia, Vol. 28, Part II (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979), pp. 132-134.

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© Carl Vinson Institute of Government, University of Georgia

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