Ernest Vandiver, Governor of Georgia

Elected governor of Georgia in 1958, Ernest Vandiver presided over a crisis greater than any faced by his predecessors since the Civil War: the 1961 desegregation of the state’s public schools. Harold Paulk Henderson tells the full story of Vandiver’s political career, including his work in the 1940s and ‘50s as a stalwart of the Talmadge faction; his reign as governor, during which he not only oversaw school desegregation but fought government corruption and mismanagement; his short-lived 1966 gubernatorial campaign; and his unsuccessful U.S. Senate bid in 1972.