Hatred of slavery sparked career

Grady Elementary honors a journalist and son of slave owners who became one of the leading Southern voices in restoring rights to African-Americans.

By MICHAEL CANNING, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 11, 2002

It was 1958. The idea of naming schools after local notables hadn't really caught on yet. So the Mid Peninsula school built to help relieve Dale Mabry Elementary was named after Henry Woodfin Grady.

Born in 1850 in Athens, Ga., Grady was the son of wealthy slave owners. However he grew to oppose slavery and become one of the leading orators of the Reconstruction period. He was a journalist by trade, and worked for the Rome (Ga.) Courier, the Atlanta Herald, New York Herald and theAtlanta Constitution, where he was writer, editor, and part owner.

Dedicated particularly to the economic development of his state, he wrote articles that inspired many to start new agricultural industries in Georgia. A Florida trip spurred Grady to tell his fellow Georgians about the possibilities of growing citrus.

His sense of humor was highly cunning. Once, while regaling a dinner party of Yankee elites, Grady realized his audience contained retired Gen. William T. Sherman, whose troops had burned Atlanta. Georgians thought him an able military man, Grady said in spontaneous tribute. "But a might careless about fire," he added.

Grady died in 1889 at age 39, reputedly of pneumonia.

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