Background
Hawkins was born in Elora in Lincoln County in south Tennessee and established a law practice in Gadsden in Etowah County north of Birmingham.
Hawkins was born in Elora in Lincoln County in south Tennessee and established a law practice in Gadsden in Etowah County north of Birmingham.
He was an alternate delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention, which meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, adopted a civil rights platform plank opposed by many of the delegates from the then segregated American South. Some of the Alabamians staged a walkout in protest. He was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1950 and 1954 but left the House to run for governor in 1958.
Victory instead went to John Malcolm Patterson, who defeated George Wallace in a runoff election.
Martin, who had lost a United States. Senate race in 1962 against the Democrat Lister Hill, left the House seat after one term to wage an unsuccessful battle in 1966 for governor against Wallace"s first wife, Lurleen Wallace. Hawkins was a United Methodist.
The couple had five children. Eight years after her husband"s death, she relocated for the last eleven years of her life to Coronado, California, where she engaged in photography, painting, and appreciation of nature.
He was a member of the American Bar Association and the Association of Trial Lawyers.