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We often hear how the south isn't progressive and is behind other regions in various ways. I'm not familiar with the history of all southern states but I think some would be surprised at some of the progressive things that the state of Georgia did before others states.
Examples:
The first newspaper using a native American language, The Cherokee Phoenix, was founded in Georgia in 1828.
Georgia was the first state to give women full property rights (1866).
Georgia was the first state to allow 18-year olds the right to vote (1943).
The Georgia Supreme Court was the first in the nation to recognize a constitutional right to privacy in 1905. The United States Supreme Court did not acknowledge this right until 1965.
Wesleyan College in Macon was the first college in world chartered to confer degrees to women (1836).
Spelman College in Atlanta was the first college in the world chartered for African American women (1881).
Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah founded the Girl Scouts of America (1912).
Georgia elected the first woman United States Senator, Rebecca Felton (1922).
The South is not really any worst off or backwards than anywhere else despite the stereotypes that people falsely believe in. I've been there before, and while I did notice some racism, I also notice some racism in other parts of the country too (such as in Southern California which is a liberal paradise). It's not everywhere in the south either, and it wasn't everyone, I was in the Jacksonville area which is where I noticed it. I however have been to Atlanta and Savanna and found them both to be enjoyable cities, same with Charleston SC which I found to be a very elegant city.
It's like everywhere else, you have your good places and your bad places. You have your good people and your bad people.
Back in the old days, there were a lot of radical farm workers. Huey Long types. It's not well remembered today, but disenfranchisement wasn't limited to black people. Poor whites were often hit up with poll taxes and literacy tests for all the same reasons. Somehow, the Right has coopted the populist radical rhetoric in more recent days. Go figure.
We often hear how the south isn't progressive and is behind other regions in various ways. I'm not familiar with the history of all southern states but I think some would be surprised at some of the progressive things that the state of Georgia did before others states.
Examples:
The first newspaper using a native American language, The Cherokee Phoenix, was founded in Georgia in 1828.
Georgia was the first state to give women full property rights (1866).
Georgia was the first state to allow 18-year olds the right to vote (1943).
The Georgia Supreme Court was the first in the nation to recognize a constitutional right to privacy in 1905. The United States Supreme Court did not acknowledge this right until 1965.
Wesleyan College in Macon was the first college in world chartered to confer degrees to women (1836).
Spelman College in Atlanta was the first college in the world chartered for African American women (1881).
Juliette Gordon Low of Savannah founded the Girl Scouts of America (1912).
Georgia elected the first woman United States Senator, Rebecca Felton (1922).
I will point out that Rebecca Felton was not 'elected' but appointed to fill a vacancy, and served a total of 24 hours in office.
According to the US Senate website, the first woman actually elected to the US Senate was Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas: she too had been appointed for a vacancy (death of her Senate husband), but she ran for, and won, election in her own right (Arkansas, 1932).
The founder of Georgia was James Olgelthorpe, clearly a proto-progressive. He saw Georgia as an alternative to Brit prisons, and a way to deal with what was then called "human offal." He also campaigned against mistreatment of sailors in the Royal Navy.
I'm no fan of Jesse Helms. But like most human beings, he was a mixed bag. The current social trend of assigning all persons and organizations to one " side" or the other, turns people into cartoons. Denying that there is middle ground and assuming that your political opponent is inherently evil is a recipe for disintegration.
Back in the old days, there were a lot of radical farm workers. Huey Long types. It's not well remembered today, but disenfranchisement wasn't limited to black people. Poor whites were often hit up with poll taxes and literacy tests for all the same reasons. Somehow, the Right has coopted the populist radical rhetoric in more recent days. Go figure.
Embracing of progressivism didn't really occur until the New Deal which lifted millions of poor Southerners out of rural poverty. Even then that progressivism was mostly economic as social, mostly racial attitudes, only changed by will of the Federal Government.
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