SAVANNAH, Ga. — Michael Thurmond thought he was reading familiar history at the burial place of Georgia’s colonial founder. Then a single sentence on a marble plaque extolling the accomplishments of James Edward Oglethorpe left him stunned speechless.
Georgia
A Black author takes a new look at Georgia's white founder and his failed attempt to ban slavery
Oglethorpe led the expedition that established Georgia as the last of Britain’s 13 American colonies in February 1733. Thurmond, a history aficionado and the only Black member of a Georgia delegation visiting the founder’s tomb outside London, knew Oglethorpe had tried unsuccessfully to keep slaves out of the colony. Historians widely agreed he was concerned for the safety and self-sufficiency of white settlers rather than the suffering of enslaved Africans.
Could Georgia’s white founding father possibly have been an ally to Black people in an era when the British Empire was forcing thousands into bondage?
“It was stunning,” Thurmond recalled. ”Initially, I was consumed by disbelief. I didn’t believe it was true.”
Thurmond would grapple with questions raised by that visit for the next 27 years, compelled to take a closer look at Oglethorpe. Now he has written a provocatively titled book: “James Oglethorpe, Father Of Georgia — A Founder’s Journey From Slave Trader to Abolitionist.”
Published this month by the University of Georgia Press, Thurmond’s book makes a case that Oglethorpe evolved to revile slavery and, unlike most white Europeans of his time, saw the humanity in enslaved Africans. And while Oglethorpe’s efforts to prohibit slavery in Georgia ultimately failed, Thurmond argues he left a lasting — and largely uncredited — legacy by influencing early English abolitionists.
“He is shining a spotlight on the part of Oglethorpe’s life that most people have kind of thought was just periphery,” said Stan Deaton, senior historian for the Georgia Historical Society. “I think he’s thought deeply about this. And let’s be honest, there have not been many African-Americans who have written about colonial Georgia and particularly about Oglethorpe.”
Though this is Thurmond’s third book about Georgia history, he’s no academic. The son of a sharecropper and great-grandson of a Georgia slave, Thurmond became an attorney and has served for decades in state and local government. His 1998 election as state labor commissioner made Thurmond the first Black candidate to win statewide office in Georgia without first being appointed. He is now the elected CEO of DeKalb County, which includes portions of Atlanta.
His book traces Oglethorpe’s origins as a wealthy Englishman who held a seat in Parliament and served as deputy governor of the slave-trading Royal African Company before departing for America. Thurmond argues that seeing the cruelty of slavery firsthand changed Oglethorpe, who returned to England and shared his views with activists who would become Britain’s first abolitionists.
“What I tried to do is to follow the arc of his life, his evolution and development, and to weigh all of his achievements, failures and shortcomings,” Thurmond said. “Once you do that, you find that he had a uniquely important life. He helped breathe life into the movement that ultimately destroyed slavery.”
In its early years, Georgia stood alone as Britain’s only American colony in which slavery was illegal. The ban came as the population of enslaved Africans in colonial America was nearing 150,000. Black captives were being sold in New York and Boston, and they already outnumbered white settlers in South Carolina.
Historians have widely agreed Oglethorpe and his fellow Georgia trustees didn’t ban slavery because it was cruel to Black people. They saw slaves as a security risk with Georgia on the doorstep of Spanish Florida, which sought to free and enlist escaped slaves to help fight the British. They also feared slave labor would instill laziness among Georgia’s settlers, who were expected to tend their own modest farms.
It didn’t last. The slave ban was widely ignored when Oglethorpe left Georgia for good in 1743, and its enforcement dwindled in his absence. By the time American colonists declared independence in 1776, slavery had been legal in Georgia for 25 years. When the Civil War began nearly a century later, Georgia’s enslaved population topped 462,000, more than any U.S. state except Virginia.
“At best, you could say Oglethorpe was naive,” said Gerald Horne, a professor of history and African-American studies at the University of Houston and author of the book “The Counter-Revolution of 1776.” “Almost inevitably, like kudzu in the summer, slavery started spreading in Georgia.”
Like other historians, Horne is highly skeptical of Oglethorpe being a forefather of the abolitionist movement. He says the Georgia colony ultimately protected slavery in its sister colonies by serving as a “white equivalent of the Berlin Wall” between South Carolina and Spanish Florida.
Oglethorpe used slave labor to help build homes, streets and public squares in Savannah, the colony’s first city. Escaped slaves captured in Oglethorpe’s Georgia were returned to slaveholders. Some colonists angered by the slave ban made unproven accusations that Oglethorpe had a South Carolina plantation worked by slaves.
Thurmond’s book openly embraces such evidence that Oglethorpe’s history with slavery was at times contradictory and unflattering. That makes his case for Oglethorpe’s evolution even stronger, said James F. Brooks, a University of Georgia history professor who wrote the book’s foreward.
“He has engaged with the historiography in a way that is clearly the equivalent of a professional historian,” Brooks said. “This is good stuff. He’s read everything and thought about it. I don’t see any weakness in it.”
Thurmond’s evidence includes a letter Oglethorpe wrote in 1739 that argues opening Georgia to slavery would “occasion the misery of thousands in Africa.” Thurmond describes how Oglethorpe assisted to two formerly enslaved Black men — Ayuba Suleiman Diallo and Olaudah Equiano — whose travels to England helped stir anti-slavery sentiments among white Europeans.
Oglethorpe befriended white activists who became key figures in England’s abolitionist movement. In a 1776 letter to Granville Sharp, an attorney who fought to help former slaves retain their freedom, Oglethorpe proclaimed “Africa had produced a race of heroes” in its kings and military leaders. He also spent time with the author Hannah More, whose writings called for the abolition of slavery.
In 1787, two years after Oglethorpe’s death, Sharp and More were among the founders of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. Thurmond argues Oglethorpe deserves credit as an inspiration to the budding movement.
“He founded slave-free Georgia in 1733 and, 100 years later, England abolishes slavery,” followed by the U.S. in 1865, Thurmond said. “He was a man far beyond his time.”
Battery company SK Battery America Inc. laid off nearly 1,000 workers at a manufacturing plant northeast of Atlanta on Friday amid automakers’ changing electrification plans and uncertain consumer demand for EVs.
The company said Friday marked the last working day for 958 plant employees, about 37% of its workforce, according to a Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification, or WARN, notice filed by human resources chief Chuck Moore. Impacted workers will be paid through May 6. The plant will continue to employ about 1,600 workers.
SK opened the $2.6 billion battery plant in Commerce, Georgia, in January 2022. The Korean company notably supplied the Ford F-150 Lightning electric pickup truck. Ford announced plans to cancel the fully electric version of the truck in December.
The news comes as the U.S. electric vehicle market is at a standstill amid the Trump administration steering federal support away from electrification in favor of more lax automotive emissions policies and a broader agenda supporting the oil and gas industries.
SK Americas spokesperson Joe Guy Collier said in a statement that the workforce reduction was made to align operations to market conditions.
“SK Battery America remains committed to Georgia and to building a robust U.S. supply chain for advanced battery manufacturing,” Collier said. “We are pursuing a range of future customers, including the Battery Electric Storage System arena.”
The City of Commerce and the Jackson County commission chair did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Ford said in December that it would scrap the fully-electric version of its iconic pickup truck and opt for an extended-range version of the vehicle. A Ford spokesperson said it could not comment on supplier personnel actions.
SK and Ford had together previously invested $11.4 billion in joint battery plants in the U.S. The battery maker ended the joint venture in December.
SK is also a supplier to Volkswagen.
“Let’s be clear: these were battery manufacturing jobs and now they’re gone,” Georgia U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, said in a statement. “As predicted, Trump’s war on electric vehicles is hurting Georgia’s economy. We were booming and building new plants. Now Georgians are losing their jobs.”
SK has invested significantly in Jackson County in Georgia in recent years as automakers shored up plans to spend billions to develop and build EVs and the federal government under former President Joe Biden supported efforts to build out a domestic EV supply chain.
It had also announced in June 2020 plans to pour $940 million to expand its battery manufacturing presence in Atlanta. At the time, Gov. Brian Kemp’s office said the expansion would create 600 jobs.
SK and Hyundai are still jointly building a $5 billion battery factory near Cartersville, northwest of Atlanta.
The state has also attracted other massive EV manufacturing investments; Rivian’s $5 billion factory and Hyundai’s own $7.6 billion factory complex among them.
Few states benefited more than Georgia from Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act, which accelerated a rush of green energy projects. The 33 additional projects announced by the end of 2024 were the most nationwide, according to E2, an environmental business group. Exact figures differ, but projects in Georgia topped $20 billion, pledging more than 25,000 jobs. Some of those companies are still pushing on. Qcells, a unit of South Korea’s Hanwha Solutions, said Friday that it had resumed normal production. The company had temporarily reduced hours and pay for some workers last year because U.S. customs officials had been detaining imported components needed to make solar panels.
EV demand, while still growing, has not met automakers’ ambitious expectations in recent years. EVs accounted for about 8% of new vehicle sales in the U.S. in 2025, much the same as a year earlier.
Automakers have been reevaluating their multibillion-dollar electrification plans as financial losses mount and demand shifts.
Manufacturers including Ford, General Motors, Stellantis and others — along with others across the EV supply chain — have reneged on factory, investment and product plans, laid off workers and, instead, pivoted some of those efforts to hybrid and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles.
Hybrids and more efficient gasoline-powered vehicles are seemingly more palatable for mainstream buyers concerned about EV driving range and charging infrastructure availability.
Under President Donald Trump, meanwhile, Congress has eliminated tax credits of up to $7,500 for consumers’ purchases of new or used EVs.
The administration has also announced plans to weaken fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions rules for automakers, essentially eliminating any federal incentive for auto companies to make their vehicle fleets cleaner.
___
St. John reported from Detroit.
Georgia
As Texas braces for messy Senate runoff, Georgia Republicans fear similar fate unless Trump endorses
ATLANTA — Georgia Republicans are getting antsy. As U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff dominates the nation in fundraising and makes his case to voters, three Republicans who want his spot are still competing among themselves for their party’s nomination.
This week’s election frenzy in Texas didn’t help. After President Donald Trump declined to help clear the field with an endorsement, Sen. John Cornyn and state Attorney General Ken Paxton are primed for a bitter and expensive runoff that could sap resources needed in more competitive states.
Trump has since promised to choose between the two of them, but he hasn’t said when he’ll make an announcement or whom he’ll support. And there’s no sign that the president is ready to get involved in Georgia’s primary on May 19, meaning Republicans there could be on course for a similar predicament.
“I’d like to have as many days as I can to focus the public’s attention on the choice between our nominee and Sen. Ossoff,” said state party chair Josh McKoon. “Assuming that President Trump does not weigh in, it seems like it is more likely than not that we will have a runoff.”
Each of Georgia’s three main Republican contenders — Rep. Mike Collins, Rep. Buddy Carter and former football coach Derek Dooley — has positioned himself as the best person to help Trump in Washington. Trump could almost certainly anoint a winner if he wanted to use his influence.
“It is the gold standard of the party,” said Faith & Freedom Coalition chairman Ralph Reed. “It’s the strongest endorsement I’ve ever seen in my career.”
Ossoff sees political advantage in the competition for Trump’s support.
Rep. Buddy Carter, R-Ga., speaks before Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump, Sept. 24, 2024, at the Johnny Mercer Theatre Civic Center, in Savannah, Ga. Credit: AP/Evan Vucci
“My opponents have already made clear they will be Donald Trump’s puppets,” Ossoff said in a speech this week at Georgia’s capitol.
The non-endorsement looms over race
Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, warned in an interview with The Washington Examiner last month that the wide primary field could end in a general election loss in Georgia.
“We need to get it down to one candidate as soon as possible,” Scott said. “And if we are able to do so, we have a chance to be successful there. But as long as we have three candidates, it’s going to be tougher for us.”
Republican strategist and Collins ally Stephen Lawson warned that Ossoff “continues every day going unscathed.”
Derek Dooley, a Republican candidate for Senate in Georgia, attends an Atlanta Young Republicans campaign event, Feb. 12, 2026, in Atlanta. Credit: AP/Alyssa Pointer
“I do think there has to be some sense of urgency on settling on a candidate and clearing the field sooner rather than later,” he said.
Collins has a long list of endorsements in the state, and he’s backed by the Club for Growth, a nationally influential conservative advocacy group. He describes himself as the “America First MAGA candidate.”
However, he also facing an ethics complaint from a congressional watchdog accusing his policy adviser and former chief of staff of improperly hiring his girlfriend as an intern even though she didn’t complete assigned work. Collins has called the complaint “bogus.”
Carter said in an interview this week that “I’m the one without any baggage.”
A political fixture in southeast Georgia, Carter says he’s a “MAGA warrior.” He has called for expanded immigration enforcement in the state despite criticisms of aggressive tactics elsewhere.
As Republicans compete with each other, Ossoff has been boosting his cash advantage. The senator has over $25.5 million on hand. Meanwhile, Collins has $2.3 million, Dooley has $2.1 million, and Carter has $4.2 million, including many of his own dollars.
However, McKoon said he’s confident Republican donors will coalesce around a winner and help them catch up.
Trump ‘wants to win’
Trump has a mixed track record on endorsements, particularly in Georgia. In 2021, David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler lost to Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock. In 2022, Warnock beat football star Herschel Walker.
Carter noted that Republicans have a narrow majority in the House, including Collins and himself, and guessed that Trump doesn’t want to jeopardize that.
“The president really is probably going to sit this one out,” Carter said.
Collins flattered Trump’s endorsement record, saying he has “always had the impeccable ability to put his name on someone at the right time to get the most bang for his buck.”
Candidates aren’t just trying to convince voters they align with Trump — they’re also trying to convince the president that they would come out on top in November. That’s what matters most to Trump, Reed said.
“The only thing that drives Trump more than finding candidates that are loyal both philosophically and personally is identifying and getting behind candidates that can win,” Reed said. “He wants to win.”
Business
The value of Georgia products sold overseas surpassed $60 billion last year, state officials said.
Georgia was ninth in the U.S. for exports in 2025, propped up by its logistics infrastructure of the world’s busiest airport, an extensive railroad network and the ports of Brunswick and Savannah (pictured). (Courtesy of Georgia Ports Authority 2024)
Despite a barrage of new tariffs imposed across the globe, Georgia saw another record year for international trade in 2025.
Total trade last year reached nearly $211 billion, up almost 6% from 2024. Imports, subject to many tariffs enacted by the Trump administration, made up most of that activity, growing about 3% to more than $150 billion, according to a state report released Thursday.
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Georgia’s top exported product in 2025 was civilian aircraft and ancillary parts, such as Gulfstream’s G500 and G600 aircraft seen on the assembly line in Savannah in December. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)
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Amy Wenk is the consumer brands reporter for the AJC.
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