PIECES OF OUR PAST - ERNIE ROGERS, THE MAYOR OF PEACHTREE STREET.

THE MAYOR OF PEACHTREE STREET.

 

   He was known as “ The Mayor of Peachtree Street.”  For the better part of five decades, Ernest Rogers was a popular radio voice and humorous columnist in the capital city of Georgia. Rogers overcame infantile paralysis and adolescent insecurities to become one of Georgia’s most outstanding media personalities. His newspaper career began with a short-lived stint with a Dublin, Georgia newspaper, which lasted only a little longer than he did. Today he stands together with the most distinguished broadcast journalists in Georgia’s history.

    Ernest “Ernie” Rogers was born in the Georgia hills at Blue Ridge on October 28,  1897. His father, Dr. Wallace Rogers, was a highly respected Methodist minister. Polio paralyzed Ernie’s arms and legs when he was only two years old.  While Ernie regained the use of his arms, his legs wouldn’t allow him to stand. His leg braces were too heavy, so his parents got him a pair of crutches. Ernie practiced and practiced and learned to walk on his hands. His arms grew stronger and stronger.  When a kid called him “Crip,” Ernie beat up the kid.  After that, the kids called him “Red.”  Ernie only wanted to be one of the boys. He once climbed to the one thousand-foot-high summit of Stone Mountain.  With the rubber tips worn off his crutches, Ernie began to slip and at times he fell on the granite ground. He was offered no help by his friends, who increasingly began to admire him.  

    Ernie couldn’t play sports. He could keep score and did so for every school game. Ernie was honored when his classmates elected him to be a cheerleader. In the hoopla following his team’s winning touchdown, Ernie jumped from a platform only to break one of his knees. Undaunted and feeling somewhat proud of his game injury, Ernie sucked up the pain and led the victory parade. Despite his popularity, girls began to shun Ernie.  He soon shied away from the boys too.  Ernie sank into the depths of depression and insecurity.  

 

   Ernie enrolled at Emory University.  He resented his disability. His moods of insecurity continued until he decided that he could either go home as a failure or show everyone on campus just what kind of person he truly was.  His classmates elected him president of the student body, president of Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity, and secretary of the Pan-Hellenic council.  While at Emory, Ernie became interested in the newspaper business. He founded and published a campus paper. He sang in the glee club and was awarded the prestigious Phi Beta Kappa key.  He did it. He rose to the top of his class, but something was lacking. Ernie still felt an emptiness inside.

    Ernie took a job with a newly formed small-town newspaper, The Dublin Tribune. Dublin already had a newspaper, The Dublin Courier Herald, which was the descendant of nearly all of the various town papers that had preceded it over the past five decades. Ernie stayed for only three months. He complained that the pay was too little. Later in 1920, Ernie took a position with The Atlanta Journal.    While he was doing a fine job with the paper, his self-confidence was still lacking. He turned to the liquor bottle for solace. His friends began to worry about him. He couldn’t keep this up.

    Ernie’s life changed forever one Christmas in the early 1930s. Ernie began to think about others like him. Ernie announced over WSB radio a new program, a program to contribute to the Christmas cheer of the lonely, the sick, and the lame. He called the program, “The Unorganized Cheerful Givers.” Donations poured in by the thousands.  When donations slowed, Ernie would sing a song or tell a funny story as a prelude to a plea for more money. It worked. Donations began to flow again. The charity and Ernie became a hit. Ernie’s pleas came over the air for ten more Christmas radiothons. Listeners asked the station’s owners to put him on the air on a regular basis. Ernie proclaimed himself as “the world’s worst singer,” but his listeners enjoyed his songs.  One of his own songs, “Forgiveness” became a big hit. He began his morning show in the early 1940s. Back then, people didn’t listen to their radios when they were riding to work. Despite this fact, Ernie’s audience grew into the millions. The radio waves of the clear channel WSB were broadcast over the entire Southeast. He read the news, but more than that he began to talk to his listeners.  He talked of hope, self-respect, and courage. He talked of victory in the war.  He never touched the bottle again.

 

   Ernie wrote columns for the Atlanta Journal six times a week. One of his most touching columns was one about Joe Kelley, a high school teacher who like Ernie was stricken with paralysis. Ernie invited his readers to send Joe a Christmas card with a dollar bill inside. More than four thousand people answered Ernie’s request. Ernie told the good news. He loved to tell tall tales, make puns, and attempt to write poetry. He never stopped trying to promote lost causes. He never missed an opportunity to expose hypocrisy when he saw it. Before he began writing columns, Ernie worked as a copy editor, courthouse reporter, feature writer, and music and drama critic. 

    Ernie ended each of his columns with a birthday wish to every reader celebrating a birthday that day. His friends consulted with each other and thought it would only be appropriate that they throw a big birthday party for Ernie in 1953. A hotel donated the use of a banquet hall.  A printing company donated a free eight-page program. Area musicians formed an orchestra to play.  His friends charged themselves a fee to buy Ernie a watch. The response was overwhelming.  They had enough money to buy him a Pontiac automobile. On the eve of his birthday, the Chief of the Atlanta Police Department came to Ernie’s home, arrested him, placed him in handcuffs, and lifted him into the back of the paddy wagon. Soon the wagon came under the escort of six motorcycle cops. Sirens were blaring. The motorcade pulled up in front of the Dinkler Plaza Hotel.  When the doors to the ballroom were flung open, 700 of Ernie’s friends burst into cheers. A prominent lawyer put on a wig and robe. Ernie was put in a prisoner’s chair and put on a mock trial. He was charged with impersonation, creating disturbances, and stealing.  His lifelong friends testified. Ernie was found guilty of creating a disturbance because crowds always seemed to follow him. He was found guilty of impersonation because he was found to be so many wonderful persons rolled up into one.  He was found guilty of stealing, stealing the hearts of thousands of people.  Ernie and his wife drove off in their new car to the sounds of “Happy Birthday.”

    Ernie Rogers compiled some 6,000 or so columns into two books; “Peachtree Parade” and “The Old Hokum  Bucket.”  Ernest Rogers was featured on the panel of broadcasters at the 13th annual Georgia Radio and Television Institute in 1958.  Also featured on the panel was a young CBS television broadcaster, Walter Cronkite. Ernie retired from “The Journal” in 1962, but continued to write three weekly columns. When he died in the late 1960s, Ernie had accumulated one award after another for his contributions to the newspaper and radio business as well as his numerous acts of public service. Ernest Rogers was inducted into the Georgia Newspaper Hall of Fame in 1972. Rogers, Georgia’s first radio newscaster,  was honored by his colleagues when he was inducted into the Georgia Broadcast Hall of Fame in 1998, making him the only Georgian to be inducted into both the print and media Halls of Fame.