Summary :
I conducted my fi rst interview with Hollowell on July 27, 1993, and he became my chief research consultant in my quest to chronicle the history of the desegregation of the University of Georgia. He guided and introduced me to civil rights leaders such as Vernon E. Jordan Jr. and Constance Baker Motley, as well as to high- profi le southern opposition leaders including former governor and senator Herman Talmadge and former governor Ernest Vandiver. His powerful and dynamic infl uence led me to research the untold story of Horace T. Ward and his pioneering role in the desegregation of the University of Georgia. Hollowell had represented Ward in an assault on uga’s segregated law school, and Ward later became a partner in Hollowell’s law fi rm. The research resulted in my book, Horace T. Ward: Desegregation of the University of Georgia, Civil Rights Advocacy, and Jurisprudence, and a companion public television documentary that chronicled Ward’s story and the history of the desegregation of uga.Hollowell trained dozens of lawyers, several of whom achieved national stature in politics and business as well as law. They include Vernon E. Jordan Jr., who moved to the forefront of the civil rights movement as president of the National Urban League; Horace T. Ward, who became Georgia’s fi rst black federal district court judge; and Howard Moore, who represented black activist Angela Davis in her nationally observed California trial. Hollowell inspired his protégés to selfl ess, courageous acts as social reformers. For example, Jordan ended his clerkship with Hollowell to serve as Georgia’s fi eld director for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (naacp), one of the most dangerous jobs in the civil rights movement. In this role Jordan frequently traveled to remote areas of Georgia to investigate complaints related to civil rights violations—as did his counterpart in Mississippi, Medgar Evers Jordan noted that it was Hollowell’s unfathomable courage that moved him to take on such work, attributing a great deal of his own courage to Hollowell’s powerful example: “For a young man who wanted to become a civil rights lawyer, or any type of lawyer for that matter, there was no better teacher and mentor than Don Hollowell. . . . Traveling the dangerous roads of Georgia practicing law was old hat to him. A calm leader makes for calm troops. His demeanor set the tone for the rest of us.”