Terrell County is a

county A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...

located in the southwestern portion of the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its so ...

Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...

. As of the 2020 census, the population was 9,185. The

county seat A county seat is an administrative center, seat of government, or capital city of a county or parish (administrative division), civil parish. The term is in use in five countries: Canada, China, Hungary, Romania, and the United States. An equiva ...

is Dawson. Terrell County is included in the Albany, GA metropolitan statistical area.

History

Formed from portions of Randolph and

Lee Lee may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Lee'' (2007 film), Tamil-language sports action film * ''Lee'' (2017 film), Kannada-language action film * ''Lee'' (2023 film), biographical drama about Lee Miller, American photojournalist * ''L ...

Counties on February 16, 1856, by an act of the

Georgia General Assembly The Georgia General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Georgia. It is bicameral, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. Each of the General Assembly's 236 members serve two-year terms and are directl ...

, Terrell County is named for Dr. William Terrell (1778–1855) of

Sparta Sparta was a prominent city-state in Laconia in ancient Greece. In antiquity, the city-state was known as Lacedaemon (), while the name Sparta referred to its main settlement in the Evrotas Valley, valley of Evrotas (river), Evrotas rive ...

, who served in the

and the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the Bicameralism, bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Artic ...

. During the

American Civil War The American Civil War (April 12, 1861May 26, 1865; also known by Names of the American Civil War, other names) was a civil war in the United States between the Union (American Civil War), Union ("the North") and the Confederate States of A ...

, after Atlanta's capture by Union forces, a refugee settlement was established in Terrell County for civilians forced to flee the city. The ''Fosterville'' settlement, named after Georgia Quartermaster General Ira Roe Foster, was according to author Mary Elizabeth Massey in her 2001 history, the "most ambitious refugee project approved by the Georgia General Assembly" uring that period On March 11, 1865, the

authorized General Foster to "continue to provide for maintenance of said exiles, or such of them as are unable by their labor to support themselves, or their families for the balance of the present year." During the civil rights era of the 1960s, the local white minority resisted change, sometimes violently; it subsequently became known as "Terrible Terrell County". In 1958 the county refused to register a group of African-Americans including several teachers with Bachelors and master's degrees on the grounds that they couldn't read, and a college-educated marine who was refused registration on the grounds he could not write intelligibly. The case eventually reached the supreme court, and the county was ordered to allow them to register, but they did not immediately comply. In 1960, testimony showed that Black voters were given more tests, and more difficult tests, than White voters, and that illiterate Whites were allowed to vote, while well-educated Blacks were falsely determined to be illiterate. The county asserted that this was not discriminatory. In September 1962, an African-American church was burned down after it was used for voter registration meetings. (Note: Like other southern states, Georgia had disenfranchised most blacks at the turn of the century by rules raising barriers to voter registration; they were still excluded from the political system.) That month Prathia Hall delivered a speech at the site of the ruins, using the repeated phrase "I have a dream." Rev.

Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (born Michael King Jr.; January 15, 1929 – April 4, 1968) was an American Baptist minister, civil and political rights, civil rights activist and political philosopher who was a leader of the civil rights move ...

attended her speech; afterward, he also began to use that phrase, including in his noted "

I Have a Dream "I Have a Dream" is a Public speaking, public speech that was delivered by American civil rights activist and Baptist minister Martin Luther King Jr. during the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom on August 28, 1963. In the speech, Kin ...

" speech in 1963 at the

Lincoln Memorial The Lincoln Memorial is a List of national memorials of the United States, U.S. national memorial honoring Abraham Lincoln, the List of presidents of the United States, 16th president of the United States, located on the western end of the Nati ...

in Washington, DC.

Geography

According to the

U.S. Census Bureau The United States Census Bureau, officially the Bureau of the Census, is a principal agency of the U.S. federal statistical system, responsible for producing data about the American people and economy. The U.S. Census Bureau is part of the U ...

, the county has a total area of , of which is land and (0.7%) is water. The western and southern two-thirds of Terrell County is located in the Ichawaynochaway Creek sub-basin of the

ACF River Basin The Apalachicola–Chattahoochee–Flint River Basin (the ACF River Basin) is the drainage basin, or watershed, of the Apalachicola River, Chattahoochee River, and Flint River, in the Southeastern United States. This area is alternatively know ...

(Apalachicola-Chattahoochee-Flint River Basin). The county's northeastern third is located in the Kinchafoonee- Muckalee sub-basin of the same larger ACF River Basin.

Major highways

U.S. Route 82 * Georgia 32

State Route 32 * Georgia 41

State Route 41 * Georgia 45

State Route 45 * Georgia 49

State Route 49 * Georgia 50

State Route 50 * Georgia 55

State Route 55 * Georgia 118

State Route 118 * Georgia 520

State Route 520

Adjacent counties

* Webster County - north * Sumter County - northeast * Lee County - east * Dougherty County - southeast * Calhoun County - southwest * Randolph County - west

Communities

City

* Dawson

Towns

* Bronwood * Parrott * Sasser

Demographics

2020 census

As of the 2020 United States census, there were 9,185 people, 3,399 households, and 2,348 families residing in the county.

Politics

Terrell County has consistently been a Democratic county since the 1992 presidential election, though the margins have historically been close. In 1940,

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

received 100% of all votes cast in Terrell County.

Notable people

* Benjamin J. Davis Jr.,

Harvard Law School Harvard Law School (HLS) is the law school of Harvard University, a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1817, Harvard Law School is the oldest law school in continuous operation in the United ...

graduate and elected to New York City Council. Defended Angelo Herndon in Georgia against insurrection charges for organizing a union, resulting in a U.S. Supreme Court case that ruled against Georgia's insurrection law as unconstitutional."An Overview of the Brazier Case"
Georgia Civil Rights Cold Cases Project, Emory University, accessed April 6, 2016 * Walter Washington, activist and politician, elected as the first black mayor of

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

after Congress granted home rule to the city. *

Otis Redding Otis Ray Redding Jr. (September 9, 1941 – December 10, 1967) was an American singer and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the greatest singers in the history of American popular music and a seminal artist in soul music and rhythm and blues. ...

, rhythm and blues singer; one of the first crossover artists appealing to both young blacks and whites in the post-

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

era. *

Cole Swindell Colden Rainey Swindell (born June 30, 1983) is an American country music singer and songwriter. He has written singles for Craig Campbell (singer), Craig Campbell, Thomas Rhett, Scotty McCreery, and Luke Bryan, and has released four albums for W ...

, is an American country music singer and songwriter who attended Terrell Academy in Dawson, Georgia.

References

External links

terrellcounty.georgia.gov

The New Georgia Encyclopedia Terrell County entry
{{Coord, 31.78, -84.44, display=title, type:adm2nd_region:US-GA_source:UScensus1990 1856 establishments in Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia (U.S. state) counties Albany metropolitan area, Georgia Populated places established in 1856 Black Belt (U.S. region) Majority-minority counties in Georgia