CRDL – Page 3 – the DLG B

April 26, 2016

Remembering Horace T. Ward

WSB-TV newsfilm clip of a panel of African American leaders including Georgia state senator Leroy Johnson, Reverend J. D. Grier and attorneys Horace T. Ward and William H. Alexander explaining recent demands to the Board of Education, Atlanta, Georgia, 1967 September 25, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 1411, 00:00/05:40, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, The University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Ga, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.

United States District Court Judge Horace T. Ward died on Saturday, April 23.

In 1950, Horace T. Ward became the first African American to challenge the racially discriminatory practices at the University of Georgia (UGA).

Although the all-white UGA School of Law rejected Ward’s application and a federal court subsequently upheld the university’s decision, Ward’s challenge to the university’s segregationist policies began a legal process that would eventually bear fruit in 1961 when Ward returned to Georgia to assist Donald Hollowell and Constance Baker Motley in their renewed efforts to desegregate UGA. On January 6, 1961, Judge William A. Bootle ordered UGA to admit two African American students, Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne A. Hunter, ending 175 years of segregation at the university.

Ward served as a partner of the law firm of Hollowell, Ward, Moore, and Alexander during the early 1960s. From 1965-1974, he served in the Georgia state senate. U.S president Jimmy Carter appointed him to a federal judgeship on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia in 1979, which made Ward the first African American ever to sit on the federal bench in Georgia.

The Civil Rights Digital Library includes numerous archival collections, reference resources, and educator resources that refer to Horace Ward, they are available at:

http://crdl.usg.edu/people/w/ward_horace_t_horace_taliaferro_1927/

October 13, 2015

Anniversary of the Temple Bombing

WSB-TV newsfilm clip of mayor William Hartsfield speaking about violence against African Americans after the Temple Bombing, Atlanta, Georgia, 1958 October, WSB-TV newsfilm collection, reel 0890, 11:45/12:52, Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection, The University of Georgia Libraries, Athens, Ga, as presented in the Digital Library of Georgia.

In the early hours of October 12, 1958, fifty sticks of dynamite exploded in a recessed entranceway at the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation, Atlanta’s oldest and most prominent synagogue, more commonly known as “the Temple.” The incident was but the most recent in a string of bombings throughout the nation affecting churches and synagogues associated with the Civil Rights movement. For Atlanta’s Jewish community, the event evoked memories of the notorious lynching of Leo Frank half a century earlier, arousing fears of anti-Semitism that had waned, but never disappeared. Rather than react with indifference, or worse, however, Atlanta’s business, media, and political elites denounced the bombing in no uncertain terms and launched an ambitious campaign to raise funds for the synagogue’s repair. Although the suspects were later acquitted, the outpouring of local support helped to dispel fears of anti-Semitic violence, and the moderate consensus that emerged in the bombing’s wake helped to distinguish Atlanta as “the city too busy to hate.”

The Civil Rights Digital Library includes a WSB-TV newsfilm clip (courtesy of the Walter J. Brown Media Archives and Peabody Awards Collection) of mayor William Hartsfield speaking about violence against African Americans after the Temple bombing from October of 1958.

See also the New Georgia Encyclopedia articles on Melissa Fay Greene, author of The Temple Bombing (1996), and on Jacob Rothschild, rabbi of the Hebrew Benevolent Congregation during the time of the bombing.