GA (especially Atlanta) has never quite had as bad race relations as the other Southern states.
This is false
First of all : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_United_States_presidential_election_in_Georgia
GA also had one of the strictest Jim Crow laws out their and Talmadge was worse than anybody in MS or AL.
Also the Atlanta suburbs were very Republican in the 1990s, it was the fact that Dems still did very well in rural GA in statewide races that saved them while in other states Dems had already collapsed in Rural areas in statewide election by the mid 90s.
Alabama literally had George Wallace.
and Georgia had Herman Talmadge who was worse than Wallace, Sparkman , Hill or Allan and Massox was arguably just as bad as Wallace
Lester Maddox integrated state government, appointing blacks to a record number of positions. Lester Maddox integrated the GA State Patrol. And he didn't do it because he wanted to run for President someday as a Democrat. (Maddox opposed every Democratic nominee for President from 1968 onward, and it was likely that he didn't support them previously.) His RECORD was far better than his RHETORIC during the campaign. (Indeed, while in office, Maddox earnestly insisted that black Georgians be address as Mr., Mrs., Sir, Ma'am, etc., just like anyone else.)
Georgia had worse Governors. Gene Talmadge was worse, but Herman Talmadge was nowhere near as bad as some. S. Marvin Griffin was likely Georgia's worst Governor in the postwar era (he was Wallace's VP stand-in until Wallace chose Curtis LeMay). But Georgia also had liberal Ellis Arnall and moderate Carl Sanders, and the somewhat moderate Ed Rivers from WWII onward.
Harry Byrd of Virginia shut down all of Virginia's public schools for a year to fight integration. Thurmond and Wallace were the face of the Dixiecrats. Eastland was the fiercest racist in the Senate after Theodore Bilbo (who, btw, was a down-the-line New Dealer) died. Georgia was never Mississippi, which was the worst Southern state for racism, and it never turned out the sort of segregationist titans as did Alabama and South Carolina.
