Carl Sanders

Carl Edward Sanders Sr. (May 15, 1925 – November 16, 2014) was an American attorney and politician who served as the 74th governor of Georgia from 1963 to 1967.

Carl Sanders was born on May 15, 1925, in Augusta, Georgia, United States to a middle class family.

He later stated that he had "an exceptionally happy and secure childhood."

He attended the Academy of Richmond County, where he performed well academically and played on the school football team.

He was made an alternate appointee to the United States Military Academy, but when the primary appointee claimed the spot Sanders accepted a football scholarship and enrolled at the University of Georgia in 1942.

He played as a left-handed quarterback on the freshman football team.

While Sanders was at college, the United States entered World War II, and in 1943 he left his studies and joined the United States Army Air Forces.

He was commissioned as a lieutenant and piloted B-17 Flying Fortress aircraft.

He named his own bomber "Georgia Peach", but was never deployed overseas.

After the war he returned to the University of Georgia to complete his studies.

He studied law, passing the bar examination in early 1947 and finishing his courses in December.

He played with the Georgia Bulldogs and went to the Oil Bowl.

He was a member of the Chi Phi fraternity, the Phi Kappa Literary Society, and the school debate team.

On September 6, 1947, he married Betty Foy, an art student he had met at the university.

They had two children together.

Sanders started practicing law in Augusta with Henry Hammond before establishing his own practice with several other partners.

He devoted a significant amount of time to practice early on to pay off medical debt after his wife fell ill.

Sanders garnered an interest in politics from his father, who had served on the Richmond County Board of Commissioners.

In 1954, Sanders won a seat in the Georgia House of Representatives, successfully defeating a "Cracker Party" candidate.

Two years later he was elected to the Georgia State Senate.

At the time, a rotation agreement meant the seat was typically held in successive fashion by a denizen of Richmond County, of Jefferson County, and of Glascock County.

He was re-elected in 1958 and 1960, making him the only person to ever serve three consecutive terms from a multi-county Georgia senatorial constituency while the rotation agreements were in use.

In 1958 Sanders chaired a Senate committee which investigated potential corruption in the Rural Roads Authority during Governor Marvin Griffin's tenure.

The committee found that the authority spent too much money on construction projects, located new roads without proper consideration, and was ineffective at maintaining existing roads.

It recommended that the agency be dissolved and that future rural road projects be allocated based on population density, all financed with a pay-as-you-go system.

Lieutenant Governor Ernest Vandiver became political allies with Sanders as a result of his committee work and made him Senate floor leader in 1959.

Vandiver became governor, and that year a federal judge ordered the Atlanta Board of Education to draft a plan to racially desegregate schools.

Vandiver called 60 people to the Governor's Mansion to discuss either proceeding with desegregation or closing the schools.

Only Sanders and House floor leader Frank Twitty advised desegregation, the former fearing that suspending schools "would have created a generation of illiterates."

Vandiver ultimately had schools closed only temporarily while the Georgia General Assembly revised state segregation statutes.

He opposed a proposal to make the school issue subject to a statewide referendum.

With the governor's support, Sanders served as president pro tempore of the Senate from 1960 to 1962.

Sanders decided to make a bid for higher office in 1962.

Initially mulling over a potential race for the office of lieutenant governor which had a retiring incumbent, he had doubts when a similarly-named Atlanta attorney, Carl F. Sanders, declared his candidacy.

Carl E. Sanders suspected that the other man had been planted to confuse voters and spoil his chances by another candidate, Peter Zack Geer.

Geer denied the allegation.

Carl E. Sanders then decided to run for governor.

At the time he launched his candidacy in late April, Georgia used the county unit system in its primaries, whereby the candidate who won the majority in most counties secured the party nomination, instead of the candidate which earned the majority of all votes across the state.

This system greatly limited the chances of urban candidates for decades.

Several weeks into the primary, federal courts declared this method unconstitutional, and left the nomination to be decided by popular vote.