ATLANTA (ABP) — Baptist leader Griffin Bell, who served as the nation's attorney general during President Carter's administration and was a longtime benefactor of Mercer University, died Jan. 5 after long battles with pancreatic cancer and kidney disease. He was 90.
Bell, who grew up in Americus, Ga., near Jimmy Carter's hometown of Plains, earned his law degree from Mercer in 1948. He worked more than 40 years at King & Spalding, an Atlanta law firm, and sat for 15 years on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
He left his law practice to become the 72nd attorney general of the United States in 1977, where he served two years before returning to the Atlanta firm.
Judge Bell steadfastly supported his alma mater, offering strong leadership as a trustee and helping raise more than half a billion dollars in gifts to Mercer. He served six terms on the university's board of trustees and was chair of the board from 1991 to 1995.
He was elected a life trustee in 2007 — only the sixth person at that time to be named to the office in Mercer's 175-year history. In 1983, he was named Mercer's first distinguished university professor and was a frequent lecturer and panelist at Mercer’s law school over the years. Friends and colleagues raised $1 million in 1986 to establish the Griffin Boyette Bell Chair of Law at Mercer.
"Over the past four decades, no one has been more committed to Mercer than Judge Bell, and no one has done more to advance the university," said Mercer President Bill Underwood, in a statement released by the university. "I will miss his friendship. I will miss his sense of humor. I will miss his wise counsel. He was truly a great man."
As a trustee, Bell made the motion to establish the Mercer School of Medicine, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. In the late 1980s he helped steer the university through financial difficulties and stood by Mercer in debates with the Georgia Baptist Convention over academic freedom.
Chancellor Kirby Godsey, who preceded Underwood as Mercer's president and worked closely with Bell for 27 years, said his presidency was guided and enriched by Bell's leadership and by their "profound friendship."
"His thinking was always clear and precise, his voice articulate, his will resolute," Godsey said. "Judge Bell combined a high sense of integrity with a strong measure of grace. With his awe-inspiring wisdom and a rare quotient of insight, he made complex issues transparent, and he characteristically brought light and clarity amidst shadows of confusion."
A graveside service is scheduled at 11 a.m. Jan. 7 at Oak Grove Cemetery in Americus. Bell’s memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. Jan. 9 at Atlanta's Second-Ponce de Leon Baptist Church, where he was a member.
At Mercer's December 2008 board of trustees meeting, a bust of Bell was unveiled to honor his long association with the school.
His first wife, Mary, preceded him in death in 2000. He later married a longtime friend, Nancy Kinnebrew, who survives him. Other survivors include his son, Griffin Jr., two grandchildren and five great-grandchildren
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