Representative Bob Holmes
HD 61 (D - Atlanta)
Dr. Robert A. Holmes is Director of the Southern Center for Studies in Public Policy and Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Clark Atlanta University. He is a graduate of Shepherd College and received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University at age 25. Holmes is a former administrator (Coordinator, Harvard-Yale-Columbia Intensive Summer Studies Program and Director, Search for Elevation, Education and Knowledge) at Columbia University and Bernard Baruch College of the City University of New York, respectively and a faculty member at Hunter College, Herbert Lehman College and Southern University. In 2004, he was re-elected to his sixteenth (16 th) term as a State Representative in the Georgia General Assembly where he is a committee member of Appropriations and Rules and serves as Chairman of Education. Bob was the first African American in the history of the General Assembly to serve on the Budget Subcommittee. He served as Chairman of the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus in 1990-91 whose 35 members made it the largest Black Caucus in the US. He has successfully sponsored or co-sponsored more than 200 laws that have been enacted by the Georgia General Assembly.
Professor Holmes has authored, co-authored or edited more than fifty (50) books/monographs and has published more than sixty (60) articles in journals and chapters in books. Dr. Holmes is editor of two annual publications, The Georgia Legislative Review and the Status of Black Atlanta. He has served on the editorial advisory boards of the journal of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Phylon and the Review of Black Political Economy. His writings have appeared in such publications as Administrative Science Review, Asian Survey, Atlanta Historical Endarch, Journal of Black Studies, Journal of Social and Behavioral Sciences, National Political Science Review, Pacific Affairs, Phylon and Urban Research Review and in books such as Readings in American Political Issues Franklin Jones and Michael O. Adams (eds.), Black Politics and Black Political Behavior (Hanes Walton, Jr., ed), Race and Redistricting in the 1990s (Bernard Grofman, ed), and Race and Representation (Georgia Persons, ed). He has been a Board member in numerous professional associations and has served as a chairperson, panelist, local arrangements chairperson, and paper presenter at more than one hundred-fifty conferences. Holmes is a former president of several national organizations including the National Conference of Black Political Scientists and the Association of Social and Behavioral Scientists, and served on the Executive Council of the American Political Science Association. He has been an expert witness in federal court cases involving civil rights and election laws and has served as a consultant to numerous universities, public agencies and private sector businesses.
Representative Holmes is a member of the Boards of Directors of ten local and national organizations, and has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards for his civic activities, including Atlanta Jaycees Outstanding Young Man of the Year, Ten Outstanding Young People of Atlanta, Metro Atlanta YMCA Layman of the Year, American Association of Adult Educators’ Legislator of the Year Award, Atlanta NAACP Lobbying Network Hall of Fame, the Georgia Municipal Association Legislative Services Award, Georgia Environmental Council Legislator of the Year Award, National Black Caucus of State Legislators’ Legislator of the Year Award, Clark Atlanta University/Amoco Foundation Teaching in Excellence Award, the Fannie Lou Hamer Community Services Award, Sickle Cell Foundation of Georgia Torchbearer Award, Southern Organizing Committee for Economic and Social Justice Trailblazer Award, and renaming I-285 from I-20 to I-85 the “Bob A. Holmes Freeway”. His hobbies include Karate (Black Belt, Tae Kwon Do), jogging (5 miles, 4-5 days per week), Nautilus training exercises, tennis and swimming.