Georgia
Educational Leader Walter Kimbrough to speak at Georgia Southern University’s MLK Celebration Jan. 17 | Newsroom
Renowned speaker and higher education leader Walter Kimbrough, Ph.D., will deliver the keynote address at Georgia Southern University’s celebration of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s life and legacy on Friday, Jan. 17.
“Dr. Kimbrough is an established leader in higher education and has recently emerged as a voice on free speech, which is a timely topic and a hallmark of campuses of higher education,” said Associate Vice President for Organizational Effectiveness, Leadership Development, and Inclusive Excellence, Dominique Quarles, Ph.D. “I am excited to have Dr. Kimbrough, someone who has served as a college president for two decades, discuss the challenges and importance of free speech within our community.”
A champion for student success and economic development for historically Black colleges and universities, Kimbrough has served in student affairs roles at Emory University, Georgia State University, Old Dominion University and Albany State University, among others. He was named the 12th president of Philander Smith College in 2004. In 2012, he became the 7th president of Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he served for 10 years. Presently, he serves as the interim president of Talladega College.
“Being asked to give a Martin Luther King, Jr. address is one of the engagements I accept with the deepest humility because it is an awesome responsibility,” said Kimbrough. “It is an opportunity to place in context the work of Dr. King which has been watered down to predictable sound bites, sharing parts of his work we never mention.”
Georgia Southern’s celebration of King’s legacy is open to the University community. The breakfast celebration event will be held on the Statesboro Campus at 8:30 a.m. in the Williams Center Multipurpose Room. The lunch celebration will be held on the Armstrong Campus in Savannah in the Armstrong Center Ballroom at 12:30 p.m.
Georgia Southern students are also encouraged to attend the King Holiday Celebration Parade in Statesboro Jan. 18, as well as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Annual Parade in Savannah Jan. 20.
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Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
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