Georgia has been on everyone’s mind this year.
In November, President-elect Joe Biden became the first Democrat in 28 years to flip the state blue. And this week, Georgia again enters the political spotlight with two runoff races that will determine which party controls the US Senate.
So as all eyes turn to Georgia, we figured it would be a good time to share with some interesting tidbits you may not know about the Peach State.
THE GOOD
– In 1943, Georgia became the first state to lower the legal voting age from 21 to 18.
– In the city of Athens, there’s a tree that owns itself. The Junior Ladies Garden Club continues to care for this very special tree.
– Georgia is home to Wesleyan College, the first college in the world chartered to grant degrees to women.
– Berry College is also located in Georgia. It has the largest contiguous campus in the world (27,000 acres!).
– America’s largest Black-owned production company is in Georgia: Tyler Perry Studios.
– Located in Midtown Atlanta, The Varsity is considered to be the world’s largest drive-in restaurant. Founded in 1928, this gigantic fast-food joint can seat 800 diners!
– Georgia State awards more bachelor’s degrees to Black students than any other institution in the US.
– In 1912, The Girl Scouts program was born here – in Savannah, Georgia.
THE BAD
– Georgia is home to Stone Mountain, a monument for Confederate icons Stonewall Jackson, General Robert E. Lee, and President Jefferson Davis. Its sculptors include the sculptor who went on to carve Mount Rushmore. And it has been called the world’s largest tribute to White supremacy.
– Traffic in Atlanta is notoriously terrible. In 2020, the INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard concluded that drivers spent on average 82 hours a year sitting in traffic.
– One of the most infamous American cases of anti-Semitism occurred in Atlanta with the lynching of Leo Frank in 1915.
The scars of this act of terror did not dissipate among the Jewish community, and in 1958, a group of White supremacists called “the Confederate Underground” bombed one of the city’s largest and most culturally significant synagogues.