Georgia Davis Powers

Georgia Davis Powers (née Montgomery; October 19, 1923 During her term, she was "regarded as the leading advocate for blacks, women, children, the poor, and the handicapped," and was the chair of the Health and Welfare committee from 1970 to 1976 and the Labor and Industry committee from 1978 to 1988.

Powers attended the Louisville Municipal College, worked for organizations concerning civil and equal rights, and received honorary doctorates from the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville, among other honors.

Biography

Georgia Montgomery was born in Jimtown, Kentucky, a black settlement outside of Springfield, Kentucky, on October 19, 1923.

As a young wife and mother of an adopted son, William (known as Billy), Georgia and her husband Norman "Nicky" Davis joined the New Covenant Presbyterian Church in Louisville. A fellow church member, Verna Smith, encouraged Montgomery to take her first steps into Democratic Party politics by joining the U.S. Senatorial campaign staff of Wilson Wyatt.

Davis worked for the Allied Organization for Civil Rights in promoting statewide public accommodations and fair employment laws in the early 1960s.

Davis Powers was initiated as an honorary member of Sigma Gamma Rho sorority in 1993.

Public office Davis had a job as a bill clerk in the Kentucky House of Representatives in 1966 when she asked Rep. Lloyd Clapp, D-Wingo, to vote for the civil-rights bill proposed by Gov. Edward "Ned" Breathitt. Clapp replied that if he voted for the bill he wouldn't get re-elected, and Davis replied "Maybe you shouldn't get re-elected." He blew cigarette smoke in her face, and she concluded that she needed to have her own seat in the legislature. She won the Democratic primary over Dr. Charles E. Riggs, 1,296 to 1,117. In the general election, she defeated Republican Clinton Loeffler Jr., 10,548 to 6,778. She succeeded Bernard Bonn, who had moved out of the district. Elected to serve in the Kentucky Senate from January 1968 to January 1989, she sponsored bills prohibiting employment discrimination, sex and age discrimination, in addition to introducing statewide fair housing legislation. On June 15, 1972, she was one of 20 Democratic senators that voted for Kentucky to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment. She was a leader in the movement to change what many considered the racially insensitive wording of the Kentucky State Song, My Old Kentucky Home, in 1986. In the first few months of her term, she introduced and secured an open housing bill, the first in any southern state.

In her autobiography, I Shared the Dream: The Pride, Passion, and Politics of the First Black Woman Senator from Kentucky, Powers wrote that she had a personal relationship with Martin Luther King Jr. as a friend, trusted confidante, and lover. She also wrote that she was at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis when King was assassinated in 1968, In The Walls Came Tumbling Down: An Autobiography King's closest aide and best friend Ralph Abernathy, referred to her (not by name) when he detailed who King had spent the remainder of the night and early morning with in the Lorraine Motel before his death. Abernathy wrote also that "their relationship was a close one."

After she retired from her seat in the Kentucky Senate in 1988, Powers remained committed to the continuing fight for equal rights and human dignity. In 1990, she created the Friends of Nursing Home Residents (FONHRI) to organize faith-based volunteerism in the Louisville area to serve as visitors to the local nursing homes. She also incorporated in 1994 an organization called QUEST (Quality Education for All Students) to monitor the work of the Jefferson County school board to halt the return to segregated schools. The University of Kentucky endowed a chair in the name of Senator Powers as part of UK's Center for Research on Violence Against Women.