Statesboro Battle Had Parallel In Athens 40 Years Ago

(10/30/07) The battle between students and city fathers in Statesboro brings back 40-year-old memories of Athens for state Rep. Joe Wilkinson, who back in 1967 was the leader of something of an attempted coup of his own.

“Forty years and nothing has changed,” he laughed.

The year was 1967 and Democratic Mayor Julius Bishop had been through a brutal mayoral primary but had secured the nomination nonetheless at a time when the Democratic nomination was tantamount to victory. Still, Wilkinson and fellow members of the college Young Republicans thought the mayor’s bruising presented a potential opportunity for the GOP in the fall, although their “elders” - Republicans in their early 30s - warned it would be a waste of time and money.

“We said we thought we could do something. At least to make a stand. There wasn’t a real good relationship between students and the city. We said this is a way to send a message that the students feel we’re underappreciated; we’re the economic engine of Athens,” Wilkinson recalled.

As it turned out, a senior journalism major from Illinois named Jack Williamson was recruited by the students to run for mayor. With the help of another student whose family owned a printing company, Wilkinson and his allies printed “tons of signs” and plastered them all over Athens promoting “Williamson For Mayor.”

And then they began a drive to get students registered, only to face obstacles from the city.

“We started taking students to the clerk’s office to be registered but they were being rejected because they were students. They weren’t being asked where they lived but, ‘Are you a student,’” Wilkinson said.

The effort soon drew the attention of a number of Republican activists around the state and with the aid of some contributions, the students then challenged the city’s registration process in federal court. The challenge was expanded to include the city’s policy that military assigned to Athens for the Navy Supply School also couldn’t vote in city elections.

Wilkinson remembers: “They interrupted a federal moonshine trial to hear our case. The judge said he thought we raised very good constitutional questions but he could see no reason to hold up the election, and found for Athens.”

When the election came and went, the Illinois journalism student got 32 write-in votes versus the mayor’s 1,500 or so.

But the effort wasn’t a total bust. “The mayor and council agreed there needed to be better dialogue,” Wilkinson recalled. “Thus was created a liaison between the university’s student government and city council, so you had a designated student from the SGA attending council meetings. And the mayor and council agreed to look at some of the problems with roads around Baxter St. that they had basically ignored because students didn’t vote.”

Forty years later, Wilkinson sums it all up like this: “It did turn out to be a success in many ways. However, I shudder to think what would have happened if a 22-year-old from Oak Brook, Illinois, had been elected mayor of Athens and we had opened the door to 15,000 or 17,000 students (at the time) taking over the city.”