Benjamin B. Blackburn

Benjamin B. Blackburn

Benjamin Bentley Blackburn (born February 14, 1927 in Atlanta , Georgia ) is a former American politician . Between 1967 and 1975 he represented the state of Georgia in the US House of Representatives .

Career

Benjamin Blackburn attended public schools in his home country. His training was interrupted by World War II, in which he participated as a soldier in the US Navy between 1944 and 1946 . After the war, he continued his education with a degree at the University of North Carolina . There he graduated in 1947. During the Korean War he was again a naval officer. He later belonged to the military reserve for this branch of service. After studying law at Emory University and being admitted to the bar in 1954, he began working in his new profession in Atlanta. Between 1955 and 1957 he worked for the Attorney General of Georgia.

Politically, Blackburn became a member of the Republican Party , which has had little political significance in Georgia since the end of the Reconstruction in the 1870s. In the 1960s, however, the party managed to catch up with the Democratic Party . In the 1966 congressional elections , Blackburn was elected to the US House of Representatives in Washington, DC , in the fourth constituency of Georgia , where he succeeded James MacKay on January 3, 1967 . Since 1872 he was the first Republican to represent this district in Congress. After three re-elections, he was able to complete four legislative terms in Congress by January 3, 1975 . During this time, among other things, the end of the Vietnam War and the Watergate affair fell . The latter harmed the Republican Party nationwide. Blackburn's electoral defeat by the Democrat Elliott H. Levitas in the 1974 elections was therefore a federal trend at the time.

Benjamin Blackburn was President of the South Eastern Legal Foundation from 1976 to 1985 . In 1982 he ran unsuccessfully within his party for the nomination for the gubernatorial elections . From 1985 to 1989 he was the regional representative for the US Department of Transportation in Georgia. He then retired, which he spends in Jasper . Benjamin Blackburn has been married since 1952 and has four grown children.

Web links

• Benjamin B. Blackburn in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)