Murphy, Thomas Bailey, 1924-2007

Thomas Bailey Murphy (1924-2007), was born on March 10, 1924 in Bremen, Georgia to Leta Jones and William Harvey Murphy. Thomas was the youngest of four boys. Murphy's political philosophy was shaped by his Primitive Baptist religion, growing up during the Great Depression, and serving in the Pacific during World War Two. Tom Murphy was a good student and held a number of jobs during his youth, including newspaper carrier, movie usher, and soda jerk. He graduated from high school at sixteen, and enrolled at North Georgia College in Dahlonega. After graduating in 1943, Murphy joined the U.S. Navy and was stationed in the South Pacific as part of a Seabees unit for the majority of World War II. Upon returning home he learned that his beloved older brother James had a form of crippling rheumatoid arthritis. In 1946 Tom Murphy married eighteen-year-old Agnes Bennett. The marriage lasted 36 years, until her death in 1982, due to a heart attack. Murphy enrolled in law school at the University of Georgia, and after graduation joined his brother James' law practice in their hometown of Bremen, called Murphy & Murphy. Tragically, James would die of a stroke in 1966 at the age of 46. Tom Murphy became active in local issues, and was elected to the Bremen school board in 1948, and was then elected chairman in 1960 and served until 1965. Murphy was elected to his first term in the Georgia House in 1960. Murphy began his rise to power in the Georgia House as an administrative floor leader for Governor Lester Maddox from 1967-1970 and then served as Speaker pro tem from 1970-1973.

During his tenure, Tom Murphy dealt with key issues of the times such as integration, domestic violence, abortion, reapportionment, and civil rights. Murphy worked hard for the people of his rural district and for the advancement of the city of Atlanta, supporting the Metropolitan Atlanta Rapid Transit Authority (MARTA), improvements to Atlanta' Grady Hospital, the creation of the Georgia World Congress Center, the construction of the Georgia Dome, the Georgia Agrirama, a housing trust fund, the development of a system of technical schools, and other measures that benefited rural and small-town Georgia. He believed that if the city of Atlanta grew and prospered, so would the rest of Georgia and the Southeast. Murphy was a capable manager of the state' finances, and was a fiscal conservative, though when it came to the handicapped, children, and the elderly he considered himself a "beeding heart liberal." He supported increased educational funding for children with special needs. He also recognized the importance of education, particularly in providing technical training for Georgia's rural and small-town populations to work in new industries and the service economy as the state moved to a more diversified economy from its former base of agricultural and textile industries.

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