Encyclopedia article about Helen Douglas Mankin, lawyer, legislator, and the first woman elected to the U.S. Congress from Georgia. She was elected in a special election on February 12, 1946, with a winning margin of votes cast by African Americans, their first major impact on Georgia politic since reconstruction. Though she won a large popular majority in the next general election, Mankin was forced from office by Georgia's white supremacist leadership, which invoked the state's county unit system against her. Mankin graduated from Atlanta's Washington Seminar and Rockford College in Illinois. She earned her law degree from Atlanta Law School and was admitted to the Georgia bar with her mother in 1921 when the ban on women was lifted.

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Cite as: "Helen Douglas Mankin (1894-1956)," New Georgia Encyclopedia. Retrieved [date]: http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org.

Forms part of the New Georgia Encyclopedia.