Carroll County resident J. G. Richards Sr. (center) weighs a basket of cotton that has just been picked. Roosevelt Robinson is standing just behind Richards, along with other cotton pickers. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print. Requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource should be submitted to the Georgia Archives.

Baseball player Willard Nixon is pictured in 1951 as a pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. He was especially effective pitching against the New York Yankees and earned the nickname "Yankee Killer." Courtesy of Boston Red Sox The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print. All requests for permission to publish or reproduce the resource must be submitted to the rights holder.

William B. Hartsfield was a man of humble origins who became one of the greatest mayors of Atlanta. He served as mayor for six terms (1937-41, 1942-61), longer than any other person in the city’s history. Hartsfield held office during a critical period when the color line separating the races began to change and the city grew from more than 100,000 inhabitants to a metropolitan population of one million. He is credited with developing Atlanta into the aviation powerhouse that it is today and with building its image as “the City Too Busy to Hate.

Prohibitionist forces capitalized on the notoriety of the 1906 Atlanta Race Massacre, blaming liquor for the violence and using the episode as leverage in the fight for statewide prohibition. Many white southerners saw prohibition as a solution to the region’s “Negro Problem.” When coupled with the gubernatorial victory of prohibitionist candidateHoke Smith, the riot emboldened legislators to propose a bill banning the sale of spirits statewide. After lengthy debate, the bill passed, and Governor Smith signed the legislation outlawing the sale or manufacture of alcohol in public or at any place of business.

In 1795 Georgia governor Georgia Mathews signed the Yazoo Act, which transferred 35 million acres of the state's western territory to four separate companies for a sum of $500,000. This lithograph, originally published in The American Gazetter (1797), shows the land purchased by each company in what is known today as the Yazoo land fraud. The New Georgia Encyclopedia does not hold the copyright for this media resource and can neither grant nor deny permission to republish or reproduce the image online or in print.