John Greer oral history interview, June 4, 1987

Interviewed by Cliff Kuhn. Among topics discussed: Efforts to insure secret ballot in 1949; political factions within individual counties; "Talmadge crowd"; leaders of the anti‑Talmadge crowd; Bernard "Buckshot" Nightingale; Charles Gowan's 1954 gubernatorial campaign ; Tom Linder; 1954 governor's race; Marvin Griffin; county unit campaigning; 1962 governor's race; Carl Sanders as an anti‑Talmadge man; New Deal's effects on political factionalism; Warm Springs, Georgia; FDR; state Democratic convention; factional fighting; Jim Peters; anti‑mask bill; Albany, Georgia as a pocket of anti‑Talmadge feeling in southwest Georgia; opposition to anti‑mask bill; appropriations and the New Deal; economic development in Georgia; Jim Gillis; building county roads; Downing Musgrove; highway board; moving to Atlanta; serving Fulton county compared to serving Lanier; road building; MARTA; trucking companies; appropriating money for highways; transportation; trucking legislation; Lamar Plunkett as appropriations committee chairman; Lee Purdham; reasons behind Greer's choice of committees; Insurance Committee; Rules Committee; Ways and Means Committee; MARTA overview; James Gray; Jimmy Dykes as a politician; Red Townsend; Ellis Arnall; Culver Kidd; Denmark Groover; Peter Zack Geer; Buck Murphy as a Talmadge leader; Robert Elliott; Claude Pittman; George L. Smith; George T. Smith; George L. Smith's funeral; the Ansley Hotel; the Henry Grady Hotel; Fred Wilson; the Piedmont Hotel; committee meetings at the Henry Grady Hotel; the Owl Room; M.E. Thompson's campaign for governor in 1950; Greer running for lieutenant governor; suites at the "political" hotels; politics without factionalism; Joe Frank Harris; Zell Miller; modern politics; MARTA; political issues; fund raising; Greer campaign against Ralph David Abernathy; Greer's political constituency; Greer campaign against Tom Miller; political career; Greer's family; editing a newspaper in Cordele, Georgia; early life.