James Armstrong Mackay

James Armstrong Mackay (Georgia Politician), attorney, politician, author, and conservationist; June 25, 1919-July 2, 2004., know fondly to many as Jamie.

Parents

James Mackay’s father was a Methodist minister born in Northern Ireland, and his mother was born in Shanghai, China, the daughter of missionaries. He was born in Fairfield, Jefferson County, Ala. on June 25, 1919.

Emory University

He graduated with an A.B. degree from Emory University, Atlanta, Ga., in 1940. Mackay attended Duke University, 1940-1941 After active duty he then returned to Emory where he was president of the student body and received an LL.B., from Emory University School of Law, Atlanta, Ga., in 1947.

Military Service

During World War II, he served as a Coast Guard Reserve officer on the U.S.S. Menges, a destroyer escort in the Mediterranean, in 1944, and earned a Bronze Star for rescuing men when his ship was torpedoed. World War II followed, searing its impressions on the children of the Depression. As a Coast Guard Reserve officer on the U.S.S. Menges, a destroyer escort in the Mediterranean, Mackay saw nearly five hundred men incinerated by a torpedo attack before his own ship came under fire. "You begin to understand that some things can't be settled in a bull session," he says quietly. Mackay earned the Bronze Star.

Who Runs Georgia?

After graduating, Mackay and fellow Emory alumnus Calvin Kytle were commissioned in 1947 to observe the Georgia legislature and to tour the state's 159 counties, in order to produce a report entitled Who Runs Georgia? The report remained a private document, known only to scholars and historians, for nearly fifty years, and was finally published by the University of Georgia Press in 1998. An unpublished version of the manuscript is housed in the Special Collections Department of Georgia State University's Pullen Library, along with interviews in which Mr. Mackay is mentioned. After writing their report, Mackay and Kytle formed Georgia Veterans for Majority Rule, which raised funds for a court test of the county unit system. They lost their case, but the U.S. Supreme Court eventually dissolved the county unit system by ruling on another case, Gray v. Sanders, in 1962. By then, the authors had embarked on careers in journalism, law, and public service.

ervice in U. S. Congress

Mackay decided he couldn't be just a "drawing-room liberal" and served six terms as a Georgia state representative (1951-1952, 1955-1964) as well as a term as a Democrat in the Eighty-ninth U.S. Congress, where he was one of two Southerners who voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. During his tenure he also supported passage of the Medicare, and obtained federal funding for the Fernbank Science Center and Planetarium. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection to the Ninetieth Congress in 1966.

Who calls the shots? Who is benefiting? Who is being most hurt?

James Mackay and Calvin Kytle both said the end of segregation and the county unit system were hallmark developments in Georgia but suggested that many of the problems still remain, in only slightly different forms. "Georgia politics in 1946, in some ways, simply went national," said Kytle. "The system of campaign finance in this country is functionally equivalent to the county unit system. It has disfranchised enormous numbers of people."

Kytle and Mackay watched as years passed and only a few of their goals were accomplished. Yet anyone who met them was impressed with their buoyant optimism. "Look at these guys," said President Carter. "They end up far from being dispirited. This is a struggle they recognize may not be won in a few years, or even in their lifetime. "This book will never be a bestseller, but I would hope that people will read Who Runs Georgia? and bring to their current political world the same kind of tough-minded questions Kytle and Mackay asked: 'Who calls the shots? Who is benefiting? Who is being most hurt?' These are fundamental issues."

"Every generation," says Mackay, "encounters things that need to be changed."

Life in Decatur, Georgia

Mackay practiced law in Decatur, Ga. with his daughter Kathy and remained active in the Georgia Conservancy. He was a lifelong Methodist and served as an Emory trustee

James Mackay of Decatur was one of 32 state House members who opposed the flag change. "There was only one reason for putting the flag on there. Like the gun rack in the back of a pickup truck, it telegraphs a message," he said decades later.

On Feb. 13, 1956, the day Griffin signed into law the new flag and its Confederate emblem, the state Senate gave final legislative approval to a resolution declaring null and void the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Brown vs. Board of Education.

Emory University conferred an Honorary Doctorate Degree on Mackay at its Sesquicentennial Convocation December 10, 1986. Jamie’s honors include the Georgia Conservancy’s“Distinguished Conservationist Award,” the DeKalb Historical Society’s “History Maker Award,” the 1979 Rock Howard Award, and the 1984 “Mr. DeKalb Award.

Founder of the Georgia Conservancy

Georgia Conservancy president John Sibley remarked after Mackay passing, “He was a larger-than-life person and an environmentalist who raised the level of the environmental movement in Georgia all by himself.” Jamie Mackay was in fact the one who recognized that public concern for the environment, stemming from the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, needed to take root in Georgia. In January 1967, he assembled some of his colleagues to talk about forming the group that over 37 years later is known as one of the leading environmental organizations in the nation.

Under Mackay’s leadership, the Conservancy quickly understood that seeing what was happening in Georgia is the best way to learn about places and issues, that being active rather than reactive leads to success, and that Georgia’s economy and ecology are inseparable. The Georgia Conservancy honored Jamie with its Distinguished Conservationist award in 2001. Not only did he have the idea to create this organization and shape its orientation, he was a long-time trustee and maintained his involvement until late in his life, always with a clear vision. All of Georgia benefited from his intellect, energy, and care. Sweetwater Creek, Panola Mountain, the Okefenokee Swamp, Chattooga River, Cumberland Island, and Fernbank are only a few of his legacies.

Sibley said “we are greatly indebted to Jamie Mackay for profoundly changing our state’s approach to protecting air, water, and land. His devotion ran deep as any of Georgia waters”.

ociety of Noah

Mackay passed away on July 2, 2004 at the age of 85, at Lookout Mountain, Tennessee where he maintained a boat cleat on his deck a thousand feet above the floor of Lookout Valley and invited others to join his Society of Noah – keeping the long view clearly in mind.

His first wife, Mary Caroline Lee Mackay, and his son, James Edward Mackay, predeceased him. He was survived by his wife, Sara Lee Mackay, and his daughter,Kathleen Mackay, of Rising Fawn, Ga., a former member of the DeKalb Bar Association.

References

http://www.emory.edu/EMORY_MAGAZINE/summer99/who_runs_georgia.html

http://www.library.gsu.edu/spcoll/pages/pages.asp?ldID=105&guideID=551&ID=3712

http://www.library.gsu.edu/spcoll/pages/pages.asp?ldID=105&guideID=551&ID=4075

http://boards.historychannel.com/thread.jspa?threadID=10762

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1010