Welcome to Georgia.
If you are thinking of moving here or have already relocated, you can take comfort in knowing you are not alone. An estimated 30 percent of the state’s 9,544,750 population was born elsewhere.
Georgia is the fastest-growing state in the South, according to the latest census figures. From 2000 to 2006, Georgia gained 228,415 people from outside the United States and 378,258 people from within the country.
In other words, Georgia has a diverse population that is getting more diverse. While some may complain about the influx of “foreigners,” the addition of people of other nationalities, other races, and other skills is in general a good thing. After all, the people who founded the colony of Georgia in 1732 were a pretty diverse group. Although they came from England under the leadership of General James Edward Oglethorpe, they were English, Scots-Irish, Italians, Moravians, Sephardic Jews, Salzburgers, and Swiss. Slaves who were brought here from Africa would add their own culture to the melting pot.
Today, Georgia’s culture is a blend of Native American, African, and Scots-Irish cultures. Georgians generally are highly religious and mostly Christian. Seventy-six percent are Protestants, and eight percent are Catholics. Nearly 13 percent say they have no religion, and 2 percent have a religion other than Christianity.
According to 2006 statistics, 59 percent of the population is white, 29.8 percent is black or African-American, 7.1 percent is Hispanic or Latino, 2.7 percent is Asian, and 1.4 percent is from other or mixed races. The state is almost equally divided between the genders, with 50.5 percent of the population male and 49.5 percent female. Seventy-eight percent of Georgians are high-school graduates, and nearly a quarter of these have a bachelor’s degree or higher.
Like other states below the Mason-Dixon line, Georgia is known for its Southern hospitality. That’s not to say you won’t encounter someone rude on the expressways of Atlanta, in a long line at the post office, or waiting at the Department of Motor Vehicles. Even the most polite Georgian has his or her limits. Furthermore, you can’t be sure that the person criticizing your driving on I-85 by flashing a rude hand gesture is a true Georgian. He may be a newcomer or a tourist from another state where drivers actually obey the speed limits and signal when they change lanes.
Politicians used to say, “There’s Atlanta, and then there’s the rest of the state.” That’s still true to a certain extent, but Atlanta is changing, as are other cities and small towns in Georgia. No longer the “big small town” of the 1950s and early 1960s, Atlanta has acquired many of the perks—as well as the problems—of Northern urban centers.
Yes, we have professional sports teams, a nationally recognized symphony orchestra, live theater, art museums, a vibrant music scene, a busy international airport, and a booming economy. We also have traffic gridlock and other problems associated with rapid growth.
So if you’re moving to Atlanta from a big city, you probably will adjust fairly quickly. If you’re moving from a small town, remember to stay calm when you find yourself in bumper-to-bumper rush-hour traffic.
But Atlanta is just part of Georgia. Many suburbanites have nearly everything they need in their neighborhoods and venture into Atlanta only for ball games and special occasions. Some Georgians live happily in rural areas near medium-sized towns. Others would not think of living anywhere but the mountains or the coast.
One of the best things about Georgia is its geographic diversity. Even if you’re stuck in the city because of your job, you can still escape on the weekends to balmy beaches on the Golden Isles and whitewater rivers in the mountains.
How outsiders view Georgia has been influenced greatly by the books, movies, and television shows about the people in the state. Some in other parts of the country—and other countries—still believe the spirit of Scarlett O’Hara is alive and well and living in Tara. Others who have seen the movie Deliverance, based on James Dickey’s novel, are convinced that perverted and inbred hillbillies stalk unwary city folks who take canoe trips down the Chattooga River.
The television show and movie The Dukes of Hazzard reinforced the stereotypical image some have of the state as a land of good ole boys, fast cars, bumbling sheriffs, and overweight political kingpins. On the other hand, shows such as In the Heat of the Night and I’ll Fly Away have painted a realistic portrait of racial relations in Georgia and the South.
To get an accurate picture of Georgia culture, read the literary works, listen to the music, and admire the art produced by Georgia’s native sons and daughters. Gone With the Wind, Margaret Mitchell’s novel, is very different from, and more realistic than, the movie in its portrayal of the Old South and the changes the Civil War brought. Flannery O’Connor’s stories about eccentric characters in the South contain keen insights into the influence of religion on their lives. Erskine Caldwell’s characters in Tobacco Road and God’s Little Acre may seem stereotypical, but his message about poverty in the South was painfully true. Alice Walker’s description of black rural life in Georgia in her Pulitzer Prize–winning novel The Color Purple offers a different perspective from Atlanta playwright Alfred Uhry’s story of an affluent white Jewish woman and her black chauffeur in Driving Miss Daisy. And contemporary writers such as Terry Kay (To Dance With the White Dog), Anne Rivers Siddons (Peachtree Road), Paul Hemphill (Long Gone), Harry Crews (A Feast of Snakes), Mary Hood (Familiar Heat), and Pearl Cleage (I Wish I Had a Red Dress) have written eloquently about their personal literary landscapes.
Georgia’s diversity is reflected most strikingly in its music, which ranges from country and folk to rock-’n’-roll and hip-hop. This is the state that produced James Brown and Fiddlin’ John Carson, Little Richard and Travis Tritt, Ray Charles and R.E.M., Otis Redding and Usher.
Some of Georgia’s early music, mainly in McIntosh County on the coast, included religious “shape note” singing and the “ring shout” of African-Americans, which involved a circular dance with clapping, stick beating, and call-and-response vocals. “Sacred Harp,” or shape note music, is a technique that uses the shapes of notes to help the performance of singers who cannot sight-read music. The first Sacred Harp book was published in 1844 by Benjamin Franklin White and Elisha J. King of Georgia.
Atlanta has become a center for rap and hip-hop, including performers such as OutKast, TLC, Ludacris, Jermaine Dupri, L.A. Reid, and Lil John.
Other musical greats from Georgia include opera singer Jessye Norman; the late Robert Shaw, musical director of the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, and Gladys Knight, whose biggest hit was “Midnight Train to Georgia.”
You can learn more about the state’s musicians in the “Arts and Entertainment” chapter and by visiting the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in Macon.
The list of people from Georgia who have made their mark in history or excelled in their professions is long and impressive.
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., who preached nonviolence as he led the civil-rights movement that changed the country, was born in Atlanta and preached at Ebenezer Baptist Church.
Jimmy Carter, a peanut farmer from Plains, stunned political experts when he won the presidential election in 1976. As an ex-president, he has continued his work for global human rights through the Carter Center in Atlanta.
Ralph McGill, the Pulitzer Prize–winning editor of the Atlanta Constitution, gently—and sometimes not so gently—reminded Georgians that blacks were entitled to the same rights as whites and that racial and religious hatred should not be tolerated.
Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier in major league baseball with the Brooklyn Dodgers, was born in Cairo.
Henry “Hank” Aaron, another baseball great, broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record while playing with the Atlanta Braves.
Margaret Mitchell, a reporter for the Atlanta Journal’s Sunday magazine, wrote only one book, but Gone With the Wind is a worldwide bestseller considered by millions of readers to be the classic love story.
Ted Turner, who revolutionized the media industry with CNN in Atlanta, still lives part-time near the television studio when he’s not pursuing global peace and environmental protection.
Jane Fonda, the Oscar-winning actress who gave up her career for a decade to marry Ted Turner, remained in Atlanta after the divorce and is active in a group that seeks to prevent teen pregnancies.
Zell Miller, a former United States senator and governor, was instrumental in establishing the HOPE scholarship program, which pays state college tuition and fees for any Georgia high-school student who graduates with a B average or higher.
Humorists Jeff Foxworthy of “You Might Be a Redneck” fame; Roy Blount, Jr., author and a regular on A Prairie Home Companion; and late columnist and author Lewis Grizzard all grew up in Georgia.
Actress Julia Roberts, the star of Steel Magnolias and Pretty Woman, is from Smyrna. So is her brother, actor Eric Roberts. Georgia has sent a number of its other native sons and daughters to Broadway and Hollywood. Joanne Woodward of Thomasville is an Oscar-winning actress and wife of the late Paul Newman. Burt Reynolds of Waycross gave one of his best performances in the film Deliverance, which was shot in North Georgia. Dakota Fanning of Conyers is a rising child star who has appeared in films with Denzel Washington, Robert DeNiro, and Tom Cruise. The late Oliver Hardy, the larger half of the comedy film act Laurel and Hardy, was born in Harlem, near Augusta. The late Melvyn Douglas of Macon is perhaps best known for his role in Hud opposite Paul Newman. Other stars from the state include Ossie Davis, Kim Basinger, Lawrence Fishburne, Miriam Hopkins, and Stacy Keach.
In politics, Georgia has produced not only a United States president but United States Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas, United Nations ambassador Andrew Young, Attorney General Griffin Bell, and Secretary of State Dean Rusk. Atlanta made history when it elected Maynard Jackson as the first black mayor and Shirley Franklin as the first black woman mayor of a major Southern city.
In sports, former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley and Bobby Dodd, the late Georgia Tech coach, are considered legends by their teams’ fans. The state’s outstanding athletes include football greats Herschel Walker and Jim Brown, NASCAR star Bill Elliott, golf champion Bobby Jones, baseball Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, and boxing champions Larry Holmes and Evander Holyfield.
Other famous Georgians include songwriter Johnny Mercer, who composed “Moon River” and many other hit songs; Joel Chandler Harris, author of the Uncle Remus tales; Carson McCullers, author of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter; artist Jasper Johns; blues pioneer Blind Willie McTell; Wild West hero John Henry “Doc” Holliday; Big Band leader Harry James; and Girl Scouts founder Juliette Gordon Low.
The ways we speak in different parts of the state are as diverse as Georgia’s geography.
In Atlanta, for instance, you can go for days without hearing a Southern accent because of the large numbers of Northerners and Midwesterners who have moved here.
Head to rural South Georgia or the coast and you’ll hear different subdialects of Southern American English. Former president Jimmy Carter’s South Georgia accent is different from former governor Zell Miller’s Appalachian accent. The “cracker” dialect is heard mostly in South Georgia. Many people in North Georgia speak with a southern Appalachian accent. And not everybody talks like comedian Jeff Foxworthy.
In Savannah, Atlanta, and other parts of the state, you’ll hear a refined version of the Southern accent that makes words flow out as slowly as honey on a cold day. On the coast, you might hear the Gullah or Geechee dialect spoken by African-Americans on the barrier islands.
Yes, we do say “y’all” a lot, but remember that y’all is plural. Don’t embarrass yourself with native Georgians by saying, “Y’all come back now,” if you are saying goodbye to an individual. And always remember to respond correctly when a Georgian asks, “How’s your mama’nem?” Translated, it means, “How are your mother and the rest of the family?”
Outsiders have poked fun at the way the mountain people talk, but the language of Appalachia actually can be traced back to Elizabethan England during the time a reasonably adept wordsmith named Shakespeare was writing a few plays. In Zell Miller’s memoir, The Mountains Within Me, the former governor and United States senator explains how some mountain terms are the same ones used in England hundreds of years ago. Mountaineers might say “betwixt” instead of “between,” “nary” instead of “neither,” “puny” instead of “sickly,” “bar” for “bear,” and “cheer” for “chair.”
Miller notes that mountain people are also apt to use colorful expressions, many of which have become part of universal usage:
Purty as a speckled pup under a red wagon.
Rough as a cob.
Rode hard and put up wet.
Borned tired and raised lazy.
All tuckered out.
If you stay long enough in Georgia, you’ll hear more of these expressions and maybe invent a few of your own. Meanwhile, relax and enjoy the rest of the book. In the following chapters, I’ll introduce you to the people and places of Georgia, tell a little about its history and landscape, and offer the information you need to know about getting a driver’s license and auto insurance, paying taxes, and finding a college.
I’ll also tell you about our economy, our sports, our arts and crafts, our natural wonders, and the kinds of food and beverages we consume. I’ll try to give you all the information you need to become a Georgian, or at least to act enough like one to fool the natives.
BOOKS AND RESOURCES
Grizzard, Lewis. If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I’m Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground. New York: Villard Books, 1990.
Kirby, Jack Temple. Media-Made Dixie: The South in the American Imagination. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1986.
Miller, Zell. The Mountains Within Me. Atlanta, Ga.: Cherokee Press, 1985.
New Georgia Encyclopedia. www.georgiaencyclopedia.org.
