General George Washington created the Purple Heart on August 7, 1782. Click here for an interesting history of the award.
On August 6, 1787, delegates to the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia began debating the first draft of the Constitution of the United States.
On August 7, 1790, a delegation of Creeks met with the United States Secretary of War and signed the Treaty of New York, ceding all land between the Ogeechee and Oconee Rivers to Georgia.
Theodore Roosevelt, who served as President from 1901 to 1909, was nominated for President by the Progressive Party, also called the Bull Moose Party, on August 7, 1912.
On August 7, 1942, Marine forces landed at Guadalcanal.
Voters ratified a new version of the State Constitution on August 7, 1945. Among the new features was the establishment of the State Board of Corrections to ensure humane conditions.
The board was directed to be more humane in its treatment of prisoners and abolished whippings, leg irons, and chains. Until 1945, prisoners in Georgia could expect to have heavy steel shackles put on by a blacksmith upon arrival. They were then taken out to work under severe conditions.
On August 6, 1958, the wagon train carrying gold from Dahlonega to gild the State Capitol dome reached Atlanta, where city officials were not prepared to receive them. The caravan bearing 43 ounces of Dahlonega gold to be used in covering the Georgia State Capitol dome reached the Capitol and delivered it to Governor Marvin Griffin on August 7, 1958.
On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which would be used as the legal basis for U.S. involvement in Vietnam.
On August 6, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act; Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was in attendance and was given one of the pens Johnson used to sign the Act. Here is an auction for one of the pens used in the VRA signing. And another pen auction.
USA Today looks at the history of the Voting Rights Act and the role black women played in its passage.
“Men always got the attention, but the ones who were really organizing it and were really making it work were women,” [author Lynn] Olson said. “And that was true going back to the time of the time of abolitionists.”
When Boynton Robinson’s husband died in 1963, she used his memorial service at Tabernacle Baptist Church as the first mass meeting for voting rights in Selma.
“Mrs. Boynton [Robinson] really was the organizer of this and I think the person who actually wrote the letter that invited Dr. King and SCLC to come to Selma to help them with the voting rights movement,” Dawson said.
John Hughes, director of every meaningful teen angst movie of the 1980s (except Say Anything and Better Off Dead) died on August 6, 2009.
Molly Ringwald wrote in The New Yorker about working as a young woman with John Hughes.
Georgia Politics, Campaigns, and Elections
Governor Brian Kemp issued Executive Order #07.31.25.01, extending the deadline for the Review Commission to make recommendations on whether to suspend Guyton City Council member Theodore Hamby, III. From the Savannah Morning News:
According to an executive order issued by Kemp’s office, Attorney General Christopher Carr, Dan Peterson of Perry City Council and Tommy Roberts of Fitzgerald City Council have been called upon as the review commission to determine if Hamby should remain in office. The three-person committee has until Aug. 14 to provide a written letter to Kemp with their decision.
Hamby was arrested March 14 by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and was charged with theft by taking and financial transaction card fraud, according to a press release.
The investigation began Feb. 21, when the Guyton Police Department requested assistance from the GBI with a theft investigation involving Hamby’s alleged misuse of a city credit card.
An open records request revealed Hamby spent $309 at a hotel in Atlanta, $32 on a meal at Logan’s Roadhouse, as well as multiple purchases from Parker’s. In all, the charges amount to more than $500 on the city’s card.
Former Georgia Labor Commissioner and DeKalb County CEO Michael Thurmond announced he is running for Governor, according to 11Alive via WTVM.
Thurmond, who as the former state labor commissioner was the last member of his party elected to a statewide constitutional office, joins a crowded field of metro Atlanta Democrats who want to succeed Gov. Brian Kemp in the nation’s most watched gubernatorial campaign.
He pitches himself as someone who can bridge racial and political divides to become the first Democrat to win the state’s top office in 28 years.
“I’m running for governor to fight for working families, protect and expand access to healthcare and build an education system that creates multiple pathways to success,” Thurmond said in a Facebook post announcing his campaign. “Let’s put our boots on Georgia ground to get the job done.”
Thurmond joins state Sen. Jason Esteves, state Rep. Derrick Jackson, former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and businessman/pastor Olu Brown.
Thurmond is the only Democrat in the field who has run a successful statewide campaign, first being elected Labor commissioner in 1999 and then being reelected twice more, eventually serving three four-year terms.
Thurmond recently concluded his second and final term as CEO of DeKalb County. He also served as the interim superintendent of the DeKalb County School District which, in 2012, was about to lose its accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools.
Under Thurmond’s 2013-2015 stewardship, the system was upgraded from “probation” to “accredited warned.” The system was reinstated to full accreditation in 2017.
Thurmond’s political career began in 1986 when he became Clarke County’s first African American elected to the state legislature since Reconstruction. He is also a former head of the state Division of Family and Children’s Services.
A Wednesday press release from Thurmond said he will run with an emphasis on lowering the costs of living, addressing healthcare and advocating for education in Georgia.
“Throughout my career, I’ve learned that in order to build bridges, you must be willing to be the bridge,” Thurmond said. “Right now, the American Dream is slipping away from many Georgians. Washington Republicans have put 750,000 Georgians’ access to healthcare at risk and cut critical food assistance to struggling families – but the fight is just beginning. From north to south and east to west, we must unite to build one Georgia to tackle these problems.”
During his time as CEO of Dekalb County, Thurmond said he eliminated a $27 million deficit he inherited from the role, created a $140 million surplus, and passed legislation that generated over $1.6 billion in property tax relief for county home owners.
“This campaign won’t be about promises, but performance,” Thurmond said. “I have led the transformation of broken private and public organizations, passed tax relief for Georgia seniors and working families, and helped more than 300,000 unemployed Georgians find good jobs. Georgia deserves a leader with the courage to tune out the political nonsense, bring people together, and get results. The fight is not over – let’s put our boots on Georgia ground to get the job done.”
“We know that political pressure makes it very difficult in this environment for anyone to build consensus to address seemingly intractable issues,” he said. “But I believe we have to rise together to reject hyperpartisan nonsense.”
Thurmond is vowing to use state resources to offset the federal cuts in the Trump-backed tax and spending law, which could strip hundreds of thousands of Georgians from Medicaid rolls and reduce food stamp benefits to help pay for extended tax cuts and new defense and immigration enforcement initiatives.
The 72-year-old argues there’s a lane for an old-guard Democrat who blends long-standing party priorities, such as expanding Medicaid and preserving rural health care, with a bipartisan governing style.
“It’s not so much fighting against Trump,” said Thurmond. “It’s fighting for working families in Georgia against Trump or anyone who seeks to deny them from getting the support they need.”
But Thurmond has a record of winning votes well beyond metro Atlanta and was the top elected official for most of the last decade in DeKalb County, the state’s most important Democratic stronghold.
Thurmond has long argued that Democrats must appeal to a broad coalition of progressives, moderates and disaffected Republicans to win statewide — a sharp contrast to candidates pushing a more unapologetically liberal agenda.
“Obviously, you have to energize and invest in the base,” he said. “But the base isn’t enough. It’s a base-plus strategy. We have to engage independents, moderate Democrats, conservative Democrats and, frankly, Republicans who are distressed and embarrassed by what’s going on in Washington.”
“What I bring to this campaign is a history and record of taking on tough jobs, standing in the gap and finding innovative solutions to what some would consider to be intractable problems,” he said.
Police Blotter: Long County Commissioner Robert Parker resigned his seat representing District 5, according to WTOC.
Governor Brian Kemp has received and accepted the resignation of former Long County Chairman Robert Parker from the District 5 Board of Commissioners, effective immediately.
Current Long County Chairman James Craft confirmed to WTOC on August 4 they received an email containing a letter signed by Governor Kemp to this effect.
Long County’s attorney has reviewed the county charter and determined they are not in the position to appoint a replacement at this time.
Instead, they will attempt to place the vacancy on the Board of Commissioners on the ballot for the election being held this November.
Robert Parker was one of the people arrested in raids organized by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation and the FBI in February 2025.
Parker faces several charges, including aggravated assault, violating Georgia’s racketeering act, three counts of theft by taking, and violation of oath of office.
In May 2025, the Board of Commissioners discussed removing Parker from office, but ultimately decided not to.
Commissioner Robert Parker had not come to a commission meeting since his arrest in February.
Former Lietenant Governor Geoff Duncan admitted announced he is now a Democrat, according to WABE.
Georgia’s former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan grew up in a Republican household, in the deep-South, heavily-red Forsyth County.
“That was the lens I looked through,” Duncan tells WABE’s “Morning Edition,” just hours after announcing that it’s official: he is now a Democrat.
“As I got elected starting in 2013 as a state representative, and then as lieutenant governor, it just became so hard at times to try to figure out the right way to do the right thing, as a Republican,” Duncan tells WABE’s ‘Morning Edition.’
“Politics is not easy for any party. But for me, it was just a series of events. Starting with how Republicans treated guns. Every time we had a gun conversation, it was kind of: neglect what the masses want. And that’s some sort of gun control.”
Duncan made the announcement in an Atlanta Journal-Constitution opinion piece, where he writes: “Loving my neighbor is easier now.”
Geoff Duncan wants Georgians to know that he is a now a Democrat.
The announcement, made in an opinion column Tuesday in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, is the culmination of a political journey that took Duncan from rising star in the Georgia Republican Party to an expatriate forcibly expelled from the GOP.
The former lieutenant governor was among a handful of Republicans who spoke at the Democratic National Convention nearly a year ago in support of then-Vice President Kamala Harris for president.
Duncan hit the campaign trail to back Harris in the weeks leading up the 2024 election, trying to convince fellow Republicans that President Donald Trump should not be sent back to the White House.
Duncan said he’s made no decisions about running for office as a Democrat in next year’s statewide elections, but has spoken with people across the political spectrum who’ve encouraged him to run.
Although Duncan’s political future is uncertain, state Sen. Josh McLaurin, a Sandy Springs Democrat and 2026 candidate for lieutenant governor, said Duncan’s record of pushing conservative policies could hurt his trust with voters if he were to again run for office.
“If he is just doing this because he wants to run for governor or run for some kind of higher office as a Democrat because he’s put his finger up to the wind and decided that this is the only or the best way he can do it, then I think it casts a lot of doubt on the sincerity of what he’s saying,” McLaurin said.
Likewise University of Georgia political scientist Charles Bullock said Duncan’s support for Harris in last year’s presidential race is one thing, but if he were to run for office in a primary battle against other Democrats, he would face a lot of headwinds from voters suspicious of his credentials.
Senior Superior Court Judge David Emerson (Douglas County) ordered the Fulton County Commissioners to appoint nominees from the Georgia Republican Party to the county election board, according to the AJC.
The Fulton County Board of Commissioners must appoint election critics nominated by the Fulton County Republican Party to the county election board, a superior court judge has ruled.
In an order handed down Sunday, Senior Superior Court Judge David Emerson, who presided over the case, said there is nothing in the law that supports the idea that commissioners can veto eligible nominees.
“The Board shall appoint the two members as nominated by the county executive committee chairperson,” wrote Emerson.
The decision comes after the Democratic-controlled Fulton Board of Commissioners rejected the two GOP nominees in a party-line vote in May. The Georgia Republican Party sued the commission, arguing the commission is legally obligated to accept the party’s nominations.
Fulton Commissioner Marvin Arrington, who voted against the appointments of Adams and Frazier to the elections board in May, criticized the judge’s ruling.
“This ruling essentially eliminates our discretion as elected commissioners, treating us more like record-keepers than decision-makers,” he said.
Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon lauded the decision and said it sends a “very clear message to boards of elections in other blue counties that courts are not going to tolerate playing political games with the Republican nominees.”
“Do we have the authority to pick our representatives or not?” McKoon said. “And Judge Emerson has made it very clear that the answer to that question is yes, we do.”
State legislators from the Brunswick area favor eliminating the state income tax, according to The Brunswick News.
State Sen. Mike Hodges, R-St. Simons Island, and state Reps. Buddy DeLoach, R-Townsend, Rep. Steven Sainz, R-St. Marys, and Rep. Rick Townsend, R-St. Simons Island, support the efforts of the Senate Special Committee on Eliminating Georgia’s Income Tax and wish it success in creating a viable alternative the General Assembly can consider.
Appointed by Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Republican, and chaired by Sen. Blake Tillery, R-Vidalia, the 11-member committee will look at other revenue options to achieve its goal.
Sen. Hodges notes that nine states are already functioning without an income tax, including two of Georgia’s neighbors, Tennessee and Florida.
“We really need to take a long look at the income tax,” Hodges says, noting Georgia has one of the strongest economies in the nation, is competitive and continues to be successful at luring jobs.
“It’s just where are you going to get it from? There is an awful lot to look at there.”
The state sales tax is the second highest revenue generator after the income tax, but Georgia does not currently tax groceries or services, Hodges said.
Income tax accounts for 56% of the state’s revenue. Georgia’s Fiscal Year 2026 budget is $36 billion.
Hodges has faith in the committee. Its members will find a way to abolish the income tax without weakening the state’s standing if it can be done.
“The main reason to do it is to be competitive with other Southeastern states,” Hodges said. “We need people to move into Georgia.”
Rep. DeLoach, senior member of the county’s state delegation, says legislators have been on a path of lowering the income tax for years.
He would support a plan as long as it can be effected without requiring a new tax.
“Both Sen. Tillery and Rep. Matt Hatchett (R-Dublin) have been remarkable Appropriations chairs,” DeLoach said. “If we are able to eliminate the income tax, it will be in large part because of their work.”
Rep. Sainz said he is thankful Jones and Tillery are leading the conversation on the income tax issue.
“I fully support the effort to eliminate the state income tax and have already started discussions with both of them about what a responsible path forward could look like,” Sainz said.
“I’m proud that we’ve lowered the state income tax every year I’ve been in office, but we shouldn’t stop there. Our communities in Southeast Georgia have more at stake than most. We compete with Florida — a no income tax state — every day for jobs, workforce retention and economic development.”
If done right, eliminating the income tax could help level the playing field and keep Georgia competitive, Sainz said.
Rep. Townsend said he will support repeal of the income tax if the legislature can replace it with a plan that will be good for all of Georgia.
“I can be 100% behind it if it is the right plan,” Townsend said, adding, “I think we can pull it off.”
Monroe County Commissioners voted against a rezoning that would have allowed a new data center, according to the Macon Telegraph.
The decision comes about a week after the Monroe County Planning and Zoning Board voted unanimously to recommend denying the proposal. However, as the board can only make recommendations, the final decision was with the commissioners.
The board of commissioners’ decision Tuesday officially defeats the project. Had the rezoning been approved, property owners Haley Newnam, Holly Doss and Otis Ingram planned to sell the land to a tech company that would develop the land into a data center.
The proposal drew widespread criticism from Monroe County residents, who said it posed environmental threats, would create noise and light pollution and could endanger Bolingbroke’s small town charm.
Columbia County Commissioner Trey Allen is resigning to take a job in the Trump Administration, according to WJBF.
Allen made the announcement in a commissioners meeting on Aug. 5.
“In recent days, I have been offered and have accepted a White House appointment to serve as senior advisor to the Department of Housing and Urban Development in Washington, D.C,” he said. “With the acceptance of this role, I will be working in the Capitol and will not be able to offer the citizens of my district the level of service that they deserve. After deciding to accept the role, I reached out to counsel at the earliest opportunity to begin the process of planning for the transition of the District 2 commission seat.”
Allen said he plans to submit his resignation to the Governor Brian Kemp to allow for a replacement selection.
Allen said the opportunity came up unexpectedly and it was something that he could not turn down.
“Although I will be working in D.C., I shall continue to maintain a house here and be a resident of Columbia County,” Allen said. “This will always be my home. Serving as a Columbia County Commissioner has been one of the greatest honors of my life, and while I look forward to the challenges before me, I will miss this role terribly.”
The City of Doerun accepted resignations from the City Manager and Clerk, according to the Moultrie Observer.
“Recently, a billing error was discovered that, over time, has cost the City of Doerun a significant amount of money. The City Council subsequently asked for and accepted the resignations of the city manager and city clerk,” Pierce said via email.
“The City is taking steps to correct the issue and improve oversight moving forward,” Pierce stated.
Tifton named Jeff Shoobridge as the sole finalist for their new City Manager, according to the Tifton Gazette.
Mayor Julie Smith and the members of the City Council have invited Shoobridge and his family to Tifton for a community tour and meet and greet with local stakeholders and city staff.
The final appointment of the new city manager is anticipated to take place during the City Council’s Aug. 18 meeting.
Comments ( 0 )