George C. Hawkins

George Copeland Hawkins, Jr., usually known as George C. Hawkins (December 4, 1918 - August 9, 1991), was an Alabama lawyer and Democratic politician.

George Copeland Hawkins, Jr.
Alabama State Representative from Etowah County
In office
1951–1959
Alabama State Senator from Etowah County
In office
1963–1967
Personal details
Born(1918-12-04)December 4, 1918
Elora, Lincoln County
Tennessee, USA
DiedAugust 9, 1991(1991-08-09) (aged 72)
Place of death missing
Cause of deathKidney failure
Resting placeForrest Cemetery in Gadsden
Political partyDemocratic
Spouse(s)Jane Smith Hawkins (married 1942-1991, his death)
ChildrenLaura Jane Hightower

George Copeland Hawkins, III
David Andrew Hawkins
John Rutland Hawkins

Carol Augusta Hawkins Simmons
ParentsMr. and Mrs. George C. Hawkins, Sr.
ResidenceGadsden, Etowah County
Alabama
Alma materMissing
OccupationLawyer

Hawkins was born in Elora in Lincoln County in south Tennessee and established a law practice in Gadsden in Etowah County north of Birmingham. He was a member of the American Bar Association and the Association of Trial Lawyers. He was an alternate delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention,[1] which meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, adopted a civil rights platform plank opposed by many of the delegates from the then segregated American South. Some of the Alabamians staged a walkout in protest.[2]

He was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1950 and 1954 but left the House to run for governor in 1958. Victory instead went to John Malcolm Patterson, who defeated George Wallace in a runoff election. Hawkins was elected in 1962 to the Alabama State Senate[1] at the time Wallace won the first of his four nonconsecutive terms as governor. In 1964, he was a candidate for the United States House of Representatives but was defeated, 59.6 to 40.4 percent, by the Republican James D. Martin, also of Gadsden, when Barry Goldwater handily won the electoral votes of Alabama that year. Martin, who had lost a U.S. Senate race in 1962 against the Democrat Lister Hill, left the House seat after one term to wage an unsuccessful battle in 1966 for governor against Wallace's first wife, Lurleen Wallace.[3]

Hawkins was a United Methodist. He was married from 1942 until his death of kidney failure at the age of seventy-two to the former Jane Elizabeth Smith (1920-2009), a daughter of Hulet Magnum Smith and Ruth Lee Smith of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and a graduate of the University of Alabama. The couple had five children. Eight years after her husband's death, she relocated for the last eleven years of her life to Coronado, California, where she engaged in photography, painting, and appreciation of nature. She is interred next to her parents at Tuscaloosa Memorial Park,[4] but Hawkins is buried at Forrest Cemetery in Gadsden.[1]

References

  1. "Hawkins, George Copeland, Jr". The Political Graveyard. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
  2. "1948 Democratic National Convention". historycentral.com. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
  3. Billy Hathorn, "James Douglas Martin and the Alabama Republican Resurgence, 1962-1965", Gulf Coast Historical Review, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Spring 1993), p. 65
  4. "Jane Elizabeth Smith Hawkins". tuscaloosamemorial.com. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
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