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Dr. John L. McCown
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John McCown
A civil rights activist, who helped make Hancock County the first county in the U. S. to be politically controlled by blacks since Reconstruction days. He made Mayfield his headquarters and died near there in January, 1976, when his plane crashed near his landing strip. His followers sang his favorite song, "The Impossible Dream," and buried him behind the nearby Birdsong House in a yard fringed with pecan trees.
Sources: page 142 in Houses of Hancock and the book, Black Boss. See also Dictionary of Georgia Biography, vol. 2.