In Pursuit of Excellence
The pursuit of excellence has characterized the Atlanta-based Holmes family which includes: Dr. Hamilton M. Holmes and Patricia Reaves Holmes; their children, Hamilton M. Holmes, Jr., Alice C. Holmes (Washington), Alfred F. “Tup” Holmes, and Reverend Oliver W. Holmes; and Tup and Isabella Campfield Holmes’ family, Hamilton E. Holmes, Gary M. Holmes, A. Herbert Holmes, E. Lauren Holmes, and Michael B. Holmes. From the establishment of Hamilton M. Holmes’ medical practice on Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue in 1911, to the start of the Holmes trio’s fight to desegregate Atlanta’s public courses in 1951, the end of segregation at the University of Georgia with the enrollment of Hamilton E. Holmes and Charlayne Hunter (Gault) in 1961, and the MBA earned by Michael B. Holmes’ from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business in 1971, the Holmes family has left behind a legacy of “changing the game.”
Further contributing to the community, Isabella Campfield Holmes was as an official for the American Tennis Association – the oldest African American sports organization in the US – for over 30 years, and the first black Coordinator for the Georgia Department of Education where she was a leader in teaching blind and partially sighted children. Sons and daughter Hamilton E. Holmes, E. Lauren Holmes, and Gary M. Holmes also pursued careers in public service. Hamilton E. Holmes was the first black student at Emory University Medical School in 1963, E. Lauren Holmes earned undergraduate (1974) and law (1977) degrees from Columbia University, and Gary M. Holmes has served Atlanta as Director of its Bureau of Housing and Physical Development and was the first black certified governor lobbyist in Georgia.
