Leadership for a New South

It has been observed that some of history’s greatest men and women overcame severe challenges at a young age and that this may have contributed to their character and perseverance. If this is true, it is especially so of James V. Carmichael.

One morning in 1924, young Jimmie Carmichael was waiting for the trolley into Marietta, where he attended Marietta High School. The trolley was late, and Jimmie had walked over to his parent’s store on Log Cabin Road near Smyrna. Hearing the trolley approaching, he jumped from the loading dock and ran to meet it. In doing so, he ran in front of an automobile. The car struck him while traveling about 45 miles per hour, but due to the fact that most cars in those days had an inefficient, rear-wheel-only braking system, it would be another 100 yards before the vehicle could stop. The boy was dragged beneath the car the entire distance.

His back broken and his spinal cord nearly severed, Carmichael was rushed to the Davis-Fischer Sanatorium (later Crawford Long Hospital) in Atlanta. There he was stabilized and kept immobile until his physicians decided he was out of danger. Carmichael returned home where he was confined to bed for an entire year, attended by his mother and sisters.

When he returned to school after missing a year, he wore metal braces on his legs and a corset-like leather brace around his abdomen. Although he had learned to walk by supporting himself on two crutches and shuffling his feet, he spent most of his time in a wheelchair.

Far from feeling isolated among his classmates, Carmichael’s wit and charisma made him a central figure. Long-time friend Jake Ward, who likened his classmate to Franklin Roosevelt, remembered how students at recess would gather around Carmichael’s wheelchair and listen as he regaled them with stories, doing various voices and accents with entertaining effect.

This talent as an orator would serve him well the rest of his life. At Emory University, Carmichael proved an accomplished debater, going on to study law. Shortly after graduating law school at age 26, he ran unopposed for the Georgia Legislature, serving two terms.

At the onset of World War II, Carmichael was serving as Cobb County attorney. He, along with George McMillan and Leon M. “Rip” Blair, spearheaded the drive to create and expand Rickenbacker Field, and later to attract the new plant to Marietta, a move which transformed Cobb County forever. When the Bell plant opened, Carmichael served as legal counsel until August 1944, when he became the assistant general manager. Later that year, when general manager Carl Cover was killed in a plane crash, Carmichael became the plant’s general manager, a post that he held until the plant closed in 1946. Although he had no technical background, he managed the plant efficiently, and there were no crashes during either testing or delivery during his administration.

The year that the Bell Bomber plant closed its doors, Carmichael ran for governor against Gene Talmadge. A member of the Democratic Party’s progressive wing, Carmichael had opposed Talmadge before when, as a member of the legislature, he had campaigned on behalf of U.S. Sen. Walter George in an effort to keep Talmadge out of the Senate. But Carmichael’s bid was unsuccessful, and he lost the election due largely to Georgia’s “County Unit” system, an electoral structure designed to keep rural counties from losing power to urban industrial centers.

Unsuccessful in his bid for governor, Carmichael instead became president of Scripto Inc., the company which, in 1919, had replaced the bankrupt National Pencil Company (of infamy). During Carmichael's tenure as president, Scripto became the world’s largest manufacturer of writing instruments, managing operations overseas while headquartered in Atlanta.

During this time, word began circulating that Lockheed was going to reopen the Bell plant. When this became a reality in 1951, Carmichael was asked to resume his post as general manager, which he agreed to do only until a suitable replacement could be found. When Dan Haughton succeeded him in 1952, Carmichael remained on board of directors even as he resumed the presidency of Scripto, where he remained until his deteriorating health forced him to resign the position and become chairman of the board in 1964.

James Carmichael died on Nov. 28, 1972, having survived his near- fatal accident by almost five decades to become one of the most influential men in the history of Georgia.

In many ways, Carmichael was a visionary in the creation of a new and progressive South. In his 1950 commencement address at Emory University, he stated the following:

 “I sicken of these people who are always waving the Confederate flag and telling us what a glorious heritage the South has. No one denies this heritage, but too many of our people want to keep on living on who they are and where they come from. The only criteria of individual worth is what a person is doing and where he is going.”