The Judge Who Ordered Georgia to Integrate
Near Macon, Georgia
This federal courthouse was built in the early twentieth century, but its most consequential moment came on January sixth, nineteen sixty-one. That Friday evening, Judge William Augustus Bootle, working inside these walls, ordered the University of Georgia to admit Hamilton Holmes and Charlayne Hunter, two Black students who had been denied admission solely because of race. The university tried to delay.
Bootle said no: Holmes and Hunter registered the following Monday and attended class two days later. In nineteen ninety-eight, Congress renamed this building in his honor. He lived to be one hundred two years old.
