Samuel Ernest Vandiver Jr. (July 3, 1918 – February 21, 2005) was an American Democratic Party politician who was the 73rd governor of Georgia from 1959 to 1963.
Early life and career
Vandiver was born in Canon, in Franklin County in northeastern Georgia. He was the only child of Vanna Bowers and Samuel Ernest Vandiver. His mother had two children from a previous marriage, which ended with the death of her first husband. Vandiver's father was a prominent businessman, farmer, and landowner in Franklin County. Vandiver attended public schools in Lavonia and the Darlington School in Rome, Georgia. He graduated from the University of Georgia and the University of Georgia School of Law, both in Athens. He was a member of the Phi Kappa Literary Society.
During the presidential election of 1960, Vandiver supported John F. Kennedy, but not fully. Vandiver favored "independent" electors. This led to the erosion of the Democratic party in the South, and southern resistance to the civil rights movement. In March 1960, Vandiver called "An Appeal for Human Rights", an article published in the Atlanta Constitution by black students at Spelman College, "an anti-American document" that "does not sound like it was written in this country". Vandiver worked behind the scenes with Kennedy and his brother Robert and ultimately played a role in obtaining the release of Martin Luther King Jr. from jail. King had been arrested during a sit-in at Rich's in Atlanta on October 19, 1960.
Vandiver changed from his "No, not one" stance on segregation. Those urging him to change included Ivan Allen Jr. (later mayor of Atlanta), banker Mills B. Lane, Coca-Cola President Robert Woodruff, Griffin Bell (later a judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit and the United States Attorney General under U.S. President Jimmy Carter), and many others.
Following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Vandiver said, "All the world is shocked and grieved at the death of our President. I am certain that all Georgians join together in sending our condolences to the grieved family."
Under Vandiver's administration, a United States District Court ordered the admission of two African-American students, Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, to the University of Georgia. Despite his past support for segregation, Governor Vandiver did not resist the court order, sparing the University of Georgia the national publicity associated with the opposition stands taken in 1962 by Governor Ross Barnett at the University of Mississippi and in 1963 by Governor George C. Wallace at the University of Alabama. After the desegregation of the University of Georgia, Vandiver successfully urged the Georgia General Assembly to repeal a recently passed law barring state funding to integrated schools. He also appointed banker John A. Sibley to head a state commission designed to prepare for the court-ordered school desegregation. but it was struck down by a decision of the United States Supreme Court as unconstitutional. He then ordered the Democratic State Central Committee to conduct the 1962 primary by popular vote. When the Democratic nomination went not to Arnall but to the Atlanta businessman Lester Maddox, a strong segregationist, the Democrat Vandiver endorsed in the general election the Republican nominee, U.S. Representative Howard "Bo" Callaway, then of Pine Mountain. Maddox was ultimately elected by the Georgia legislature after election returns failed to produce a winner by majority vote.
Had Vandiver's health permitted him to run for governor in 1966, Callaway would have instead sought reelection to the U.S. House. When Vandiver looked like a potential Democratic nominee, Callaway asked William R. Bowdoin Sr. (1913–1996), an Atlanta banker and civic figure who had chaired a commission on state government reorganization, to run as a Republican gubernatorial candidate. Oddly, Carl Sanders, the term-limited governor, asked Bowdoin to run that year as a Democrat.
In 1972, at the age of fifty-four, Vandiver ran for the United States Senate for a full term to replace his wife's uncle, veteran Senator Richard Russell Jr., who had died in office in 1971. Vandiver finished third behind Sam Nunn and appointed Senator David H. Gambrell in the Democratic primary election. Nunn defeated the Republican Fletcher Thompson, an Atlanta-area U.S. representative even as Richard M. Nixon was sweeping Georgia in the presidential election against the Democrat George S. McGovern.
In his final years, Vandiver would express regret at his earlier segregationist positions. "I said a lot of intemperate things back then that I now have to live with," he said in 2002. "All I can say now is that you are of your time."