James Earl "Jimmy" Carter (b.1924), born in Plains, was the first Georgian to serve as president of the US. He was governor of the state (1971–75) before being elected to the White House in 1976. In 2002, he was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. Georgia has not contributed any US vice presidents; Alexander H. Stephens (1812–83) was vice president of the Confederacy during the Civil War.
Georgians who served on the US Supreme Court include James M. Wayne (1790–1867), John A. Campbell (1811–89), and Joseph R. Lamar (1857–1916). Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, appointed to the court during the Bush administration, was born in Savannah on 23 June 1948. Several Georgians have served with distinction at the cabinet level: William H. Crawford (b.Virginia, 1772–1834), Howell Cobb (1815–68), and William G. McAdoo (1863–1941) as secretaries of the treasury; John M. Berrien (b.New Jersey, 1781–1856) as attorney general; John Forsyth (1781–1841) and Dean Rusk (1909–94) as secretaries of state; George Crawford (1798–1872) as secretary of war; and Hoke Smith (b.North Carolina, 1855–1931) as secretary of the interior.
A leader in the US Senate before the Civil War was Robert Toombs (1810–85). Notable US senators in recent years were Walter F. George (1878–1957), Richard B. Russell (1897–1971), Herman Talmadge (1913–2002), and Sam Nunn (b.1938). Carl Vinson (1883–1981) was chairman of the House Armed Services Committee.
Many Georgians found fame in the ranks of the military. Confederate General Joseph Wheeler (1836–1906) became a major general in the US Army during the Spanish-American War. Other Civil War generals included W. H. T. Walker (1816–64), Thomas R. R. Cobb (1823–62), who also codified Georgia's laws, and John B. Gordon (1832–1904), later a US senator and governor of the state. Gordon, Alfred Colquitt (1824–94), and wartime governor Joseph E. Brown (b.South Carolina, 1821–94) were known as the "Bourbon triumvirate" for their domination of the state's Democratic Party from 1870 to 1890. Generals Courtney H. Hodge (1887–1966) and Lucius D. Clay (1897–1978) played important roles in Europe during and after World War II.
Sir James Wright (b.South Carolina 1714–85) was Georgia's most important colonial governor. Signers of the Declaration of Independence for Georgia were George Walton (b.Virginia, 1741–1804), Button Gwinnett (b.England, 1735–77), and Lyman Hall (b.Connecticut, 1724–90). Signers of the US Constitution were William Few (b.Maryland, 1748–1828) and Abraham Baldwin (b.Connecticut, 1754–1807). Revolutionary War hero James Jackson (b.England, 1757–1806) organized the Democratic-Republican Party (today's Democratic Party) in Georgia.
The first Georgians, the Indians, produced many heroes. Tomochichi (c.1664–1739) was the Yamacraw chief who welcomed Oglethorpe and the first Georgians. Alexander McGillivray (c.1759–93), a Creek chief who was the son of a Scottish fur trader, signed a treaty with George Washington in a further attempt to protect the Creek lands. Osceola (1800–1838) led his Seminole into the Florida swamps rather than move west. Sequoyah (b.Tennessee, 1773–1843) framed an alphabet for the Cherokee, and John Ross (Coowescoowe, b.Tennessee, 1790–1866) was the first president of the Cherokee republic.
Among influential Georgian educators were Josiah Meigs (b.Connecticut, 1757–1822), the first president of the University of Georgia, and Milton Antony (1784–1839), who established the Medical College of Georgia in Augusta in 1828. Crawford W. Long (1815–78) was one of the first doctors to use ether successfully in surgical operations. Paul F. Eve (1806–77) was a leading teacher of surgery in the South, and Joseph Jones (1833–96) pioneered in the study of the causes of malaria.
Distinguished black Georgians include churchmen Henry M. Turner (b.South Carolina, 1834–1915) and Charles T. Walker (1858–1921), educators Lucy Laney (1854–1933) and John Hope (1868–1936), and civil-rights activists William Edward Burghardt DuBois (b.Massachusetts, 1968–1963) and Walter F. White(1893–1955). One of the best-known Georgians was Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–68), born in Atlanta, leader of the March on Washington in 1963, and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964 for his leadership in the campaign for civil rights; he was assassinated in Memphis, Tenn., while organizing support for striking sanitation workers. Black Muslim leader Elijah Muhammad (Elijah Poole, 1897–1975) was also a Georgian. Other prominent black leaders include Atlanta mayor and former UN ambassador Andrew Young (b.Louisiana, 1932), former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson (b.Texas, 1938), and Georgia Senator Julian Bond (b.Tennessee, 1940).
Famous Georgia authors include Sidney Lanier (1842–81), Joel Chandler Harris (1848–1908), Lillian Smith (1857–1966), Conrad Aiken (1889–1973), Erskine Caldwell (1902–87), Caroline Miller (1903–92), Frank Yerby (1916–91) Carson McCullers (1917–67), James Dickey (1923–97), and Flannery O'Connor (1925–64). Also notable is Margaret Mitchell (1900–49), whose Pulitzer Prize–winning Gone with the Wind (1936) typifies Georgia to many readers.
Entertainment celebrities include songwriter Johnny Mercer (1909–76); actors Charles Coburn (1877–1961) and Oliver Hardy (1877–1961); singers and musicians Harry James (1916–83), Ray Charles (Ray Charles Robinson, b.1930), James Brown (b.1933), Little Richard (Richard Penniman, b.1935), Jerry Reed (b.1937), Gladys Knight (b.1944), and Brenda Lee (b.1944); and actors Melvyn Douglas (1901–81), Sterling Holloway (1905–92), Ossie Davis (b.1917), Barbara Cook (b.1927), Jane Withers (b.1927), Joanne Woodward (b.1930), and Burt Reynolds (b.1936).
Major sports figures include baseball's "Georgia peach," Tyrus Raymond "Ty" Cobb (1886–1961); Jack Roosevelt "Jackie" Robinson (1919–72), the first black to be inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame; and Robert Tyre "Bobby" Jones (1902–71), winner of the "grand slam" of four major golf tournaments in 1930.
Robert E. "Ted" Turner (b.Ohio, 1939), an Atlanta businessman-broadcaster, owns the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Braves and skippered the Courageous to victory in the America's Cup yacht races in 1977. Architect John C. Portman, Jr. (b.South Carolina, 1924), was the developer of Atlanta's Peachtree Center.