Savannah Mayor, Council Want Segregationist Governor’s Name Off Bridge

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September 29th, 2017

The Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge, shown Thursday, stretches across the skyline over Savannah’s downtown riverfront. Savannah’s mayor and City Council are asking state lawmakers to strip the name of the segregationist former governor from the bridge, erected in 1991 to replace an old bridge initially named for Talmadge in 1956.

Russ Bynum / Associated Press

Former Georgia Gov. Eugene Talmadge unflinchingly defended segregation in the 1930s and ’40s, and infamously proclaimed a black man’s place was “at the back door with his hat in his hand.”

Now the mayor of Savannah and its City Council say the towering suspension bridge that fills the city’s riverside skyline is the wrong place to display Talmadge’s name. A resolution approved unanimously on Thursday calls for renaming the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge, as the span crossing the Savannah River has been known for six decades.

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