From NKAA, Notable Kentucky African Americans Database (main entry)
Bates, Georgia Riffe
(born: February 13, 1921 - died: January 1, 1958)It was big news for the state of Kentucky when Mrs. Georgia R. Bates was named a Fayette County Deputy Clerk in Lexington, KY, on September 8, 1955. The Fayette County Clerk was Harold Burton.
Georgia R. Bates was said to be the first African American deputy clerk in Lexington and in Kentucky. Bates duties were in the chattel mortgage office. She was also a notary public. She was one of the 10 new deputy clerks hired by Harold Burton who had taken the County Clerk's position in July of 1955.
Prior to her new employment, Georgia Bates was a graduate of (old) Dunbar High School and West Virginia State College [now West Virginia State University] where she studied business administration. She was previously employed at the Air Service Command in Dayton, OH; a clerk at Sylvania Electric Co.; and secretary of the Lexington Branch of the Atlanta Life Insurance Co.
In 1949, Georgia R. Bates was the only woman member of the newly formed Blue Grass Athletic Club Board. The board oversaw the Lexington Hustlers, an integrated baseball team in Lexington.
Around September of 1957, Georgia R. Bates was no longer a deputy clerk at the County Clerk's Office. She had become ill and four months later she died on January 1, 1958, from a cerebral hemorrhage after being a patient for one day at Eastern State Hospital in Lexington, KY. Funeral services were held at Main Street Baptist Church with the burial at the family plot in Cove Haven Cemetery.
Georgia Riffe Bates was the wife of James Bates, the couple married in 1949 and had one son, James Jr. Georgia R. Bates was born in Lincoln County, KY, the daughter of George W. and Sally A. Williams Riffe.
Sources: "Colored Notes. Marriage licenses ..." The Lexington Herald, 09 April 1949, p.9; "The Lexington Hustlers - Kentucky's Democratic baseball team that plays an All-American game." The Chicago Defender, 30 July 1949, p.19; "Burton employs Mrs. Bates as county's first Negro clerk." The Lexington Leader, 08 September 1955, front page; "Negro is County Deputy Clerk in Lexington, Kentucky." The Louisville Defender, 29 September 1955, p.14; Kentucky Death Certificate, File no. 116-58-347, Registrar's no. 33 for Georgia Bates (Ancestry); "Colored Notes." The Lexington Herald, 03 January 1958, p.16; see Mrs. Georgia Bates in "Touring the Blue Grass." The Louisville Defender, 16 January 1958, p.15.
* More than 60 years later, in February 2018, in Winchester, KY, Martha Miller became the first African American to be sworn in as a county clerk in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.