Georgia's political change came fast but has deep roots

STOCKBRIDGE, Ga. — As a child in rural, 1950s Georgia, Ralph Evans early on learned the rules of Jim Crow.

"When you were dealing with the white race, you had no standing," the 72-year-old Evans said. "It was Blacks within their area and whites within their area, and the two lines did not meet."

In his 20s, when he got out of the military, Evans didn't return to Georgia, instead following a well-blazed path to Detroit, where he worked for his older brothers, before eventually settling in the Bay Area.

He worked as a criminal investigator for the Treasury Department, raised three children and sent a daughter, Dana, to UCLA and another, Kesha, to Berkeley, but never felt entirely at home in California.

"I never really was away" from Georgia, he said. "Physically, yes, but I was always attached mentally. It's always been home."

When the time came to retire, the pull of family and friends, the lower cost of housing and the ties of memory