MLK speaker honors LaGrange judge

U.S. Rep. Sanford D. Bishop Jr. used his Martin Luther King address in February to praise the work of a LaGrange native.

“You know about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy, so today ... I’m going to lift up the life of someone else,” he said. “I come to honor Judge Horace Taliaferro Ward.”

Ward was valedictorian of his class at East Depot High School in LaGrange, earned a degree in political science with honors from Morehouse College in Atlanta and a master’s degree from Atlanta University, now Clark Atlanta University.

When his application to the University of Georgia law school was rejected, he filed suit to challenge UGA’s admissions policy. After six years, the case was dismissed because Ward had enrolled in law school out of state, but it laid the groundwork for the college’s desegregation 10 years later.

Ward served nine years in the State Senate, became Georgia’s first Black civil judge and state Superior Court judge. When President Jimmy Carter named him a federal District Court judge, Ward’s swearing in was in the same courtroom where his lawsuit against UGA had been thrown out.

An annual event, the college’s MLK address has featured such speakers as former Atlanta mayor Shirley Franklin, Sen. Raphael Warnock and the late John Lewis.