Herman Talmadge

Oh, geez.

And so they go into emergency session and elect Gene Talmadge's son, Herman Talmadge.

Oh, my God.

So Ellis Arnall locks himself in the governor's office and refuses to come out.

The lieutenant governor pushes a desk out into the capitol rotunda, puts a homemade sign on the front that says, "Governor's office," and says, "Don't go up there and talk to that guy.

He's not the governor.

I'm the governor." So Herman Talmadge, meanwhile, bebops over to the governor's mansion, kicks the first lady and the kids out into the street, and moves into the governor's mansion.

Oh, my.

Warnock's speech was a, uh, a, a, a lovely br- blend, I thought, of the sort of ethics and higher calling of his faith with the political realities of his time.

He saw some hope, the fact that he now holds a seat once held by an arch segregationist, Herman Talmadge, in the US Senate.

Uh, he said, "That's why I love America." But he also pointed out that as soon as he won that seat, uh, white people in high places in the state of Georgia began trying to change the rules and began to push through, uh, legislation about voter suppression and all of those things.

So again, you know, there's hope and there's, uh, but there's also, as we say in the title of the book, democracy hanging in the balance.