Albany, GA news and local guide

Nelson Tift of Groton, Connecticut, took land along the Flint River in October 1836, after the removal. He and his partners named the town for Albany, New York, hoping that a town near the head of the Flint would thrive as New York's capital had at the head of the Hudson, though it never came close. Alexander Shotwell laid out the town in 1836, and it was incorporated by the Georgia General Assembly on December 27, 1838. Tift was the town's leading businessman for decades, promoting schools, business and railroads. During the Civil War he supplied the Confederate navy and helped build two ships, and afterward he opposed Radical Reconstruction and scorned Northern carpetbaggers. The historian John Fair concluded that Tift became "more Southern than many natives." Albany's population reached 50,000 in 1960. In 1961 and 1962 African Americans in Albany played a leading role in the civil rights movement through the Albany Movement, holding protests and nonviolent demonstrations to end segregation of public facilities and win the right to vote, with help from the SCLC, CORE, SNCC and the NAACP. Sources Wikipedia: Albany, Georgia