"Georgia Montgomery Davis Powers [October 19,1923]

Served for 21 years as distinguished member of the state Senate in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.When elected in 1967, she became the first person of color and the first woman elected to the Kentucky State Senate.Born in the city of Springfield,Kentucky,county seat of of Washington County,Georgia grew up in a family of nine children.She was the only girl with eight brothers:Joseph Ben(Jay),Robert,John Robert,Philip,Lawrence Franklin,James Isaac,Rudolph and Carl.Her parents,Frances Walker &Ben Gore Montgomery,later moved the family to the state's largest metropolis Louisville.As a young girl Georgia attended Virginia Avenue Elementary School and Madison Junior High School.She graduated from Central High School in 1940,and from 1940-1942 attended the Louisville Municipal College.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 Georgia to take her first steps into Democratic Party politics by joining the U.S.Senatorial campaign staff of Wilson Wyatt.For the next six years she worked on political campaigns,including that of Edward T."Ned"Breathitt who ran successfully for Governor of Kentucky in 1963.It was during this period that she began to discover the value of local politics in helping the disadvantage,and she developed the political skills that would served her and her constituents so well over the next two decades.After the Breathitt campaign,Georgia worked for the Allied Organization for Civil Rights in promoting statewide public accommodations and fair employment laws in the early 1960s.In 1964 she was one of the organizers of a march on the state capitol at Frankfort in support of equality in public accommodations an event in which Dr.Martin Luther King and Baseball legend Jackie Robinson participated.Elected to serve in the Kentucky Senate from January 1968-1989,sponsored bills prohibiting employment discrimination,sex and age discrimination,in addition to introducing state wide fair housing legislation.Evan as an elected official,she was not able to get a room in a hotel in segregated Frankfort.Georgia also supported legislation to improve education for the physically and mentally disabled.She was a member of the cities Committee,Elections &Constitutional Amendments Committee and &rules Committee.Georgia served as secretary of the Democratic caucus from 1968-1988.She chaired two legislative committees:Health &Welfare (1970-76) and Labor & Industry (1978-88).In an oral history interview by Besty Brinson in 2000,Governor Breathitt remembered:Georgia Davis,Powers was a great leader and strong supporter of Dr.King and represented his views in Kentucky very effectively.She was later a member of the Kentucky State Senate,a very influential member Louisville,and I would consider her of the real heroes of the Civil Rights Movement in this state;and one of the most effective civil rights leader in this state...she was effective in the Senate and in politics through the art of persuasion.She did not antagonize people.She was very strong in her positions,but she has a wonderful personality and people like her.And she would get votes very effectively for the causes she believed in.She just was a vote getter and a great lobbyist and persistent;but a wonderful  warm personalty.Everybody was crazy about her.In her autobiography,I Shared the Dream:The Pride,Passion,and politics of the First Black Woman Senator from Kentucky,Georgia details her personal relationship with Dr.Martin Luther King,and the intimacy she shared with him as a friend,trusted confidant and lover.She was at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis When Dr.King was assassinated in 1968.She supported the Rev.JessJackson's presidential campaigns in 1984 & 1988 by chairing the Kentucky campaign headquarters.After Georgia from her seat in the Kentucky Senate in 1988,she remained committed to the continuing fight for equal rights and human dignity.In 1990,Georgia created the Friends of Nursing Home Residents (FONHRI) to organize faith based volunteerism in the Louisville area to serve as vistors 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 segregated schools.In 2010 the Kentucky Legislature,under House Joint Resolution 67,renamed the portion of I-I264 that runs through the West End of Louisville from I-64 near the Indiana border to the junction with US 31W the Georgia Davis Powers Expressway.The University of Kentucky endoowed a chair in the name of Senator Powers as part of UK's Center for Research on Violence Against Women.