Eurith D. Rivers

American politician: Governor of Georgia (1895–1967)Infobox officeholder
| honorific prefix =
| name = E. D. Rivers
| honorific suffix =
| image = E. D. Rivers Georgia Governor. jpg
| caption = E. D. Rivers visits the White House as Georgia's governor elect on December 22, 1936. | order = 68th
| office = Governor of Georgia
| term start = January 12, 1937
| term end = January 14, 1941
| lieutenant =
| predecessor = Eugene Talmadge
| successor = Eugene Talmadge
| office1 = Speaker of the Georgia House of Representatives
| term start1 = 1933
| term end1 = 1937
| office2 = Member of the Georgia House of Representatives
| term2 = 1924
| office3 = Member of the Georgia Senate
| term3 = 1926
| birth name = Eurith Dickinson Rivers
| birth date = 1895 12 01
| birth place = Center Point, Arkansas, U. S.
| death date = Died: 1967 06 11 (aged 71)
| death place = Atlanta, Georgia, U. S.
| resting place =
| resting place coordinates =
| citizenship =
| nationality = American
| party = Democratic
| otherparty =
| spouse = Mattie Lucille Lashley
| partner =
| relations =
| children = Eurith Dickinson Rivers Jr. and Geraldine Rivers served as a Justice of the Peace, Cairo City Attorney, and Grady County Attorney. He later moved to another South Georgia community, Milltown (now called Lakeland), to become editor of the Lanier County News.

Rivers was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1924 and to the Georgia State Senate in 1926. During this time, he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. The reference was made towards chain stores, which the Ku Klux Klan opposed. His election as governor came after a stormy Democratic primary in 1936 in which the race served as a surrogate referendum on US President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. Since Georgia did not allow three consecutive terms, Governor Eugene Talmadge was not eligible for re election. Talmadge, who strongly opposed the New Deal and had delayed its implementation in Georgia, ran for the US Senate and backed Charles D. Redwine for governor. Rivers, who, as Speaker, had strongly supported the New Deal, was his opponent and won with about 60 percent of the vote, the same margin by which Talmadge lost his Senate race. Rivers' first two year term as governor saw Georgia pass the legislation required to bring New Deal programs into the state, and was widely acclaimed. Rivers created the 7 month school year. Under Rivers' leadership, electrical services were expanded to rural areas of the state. Georgia moved from the lowest ranked state to the top of the list in the number of rural electrification associations. When he was in office, the State Bureau of Unemployment Compensation was created, allowing Georgians to receive unemployment benefits. Upon his election, Rivers named Ku Klux Klan Imperial Wizard Hiram Wesley Evans as a member of his staff. When Arthur Perry and Arthur Mack, two black men, faced rushed death sentences by an all white jury for alleged murder, attorney and future Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall requested Rivers to grant due process to the defendants. Rivers sought the governorship again in 1946 but finished a distant third behind Eugene Talmadge and James V. Carmichael in the Democratic primary.

Rivers was never again elected to public office. He became a successful radio station owner. Rivers retired to Miami Dade County, Florida, after putting WEDR Radio on the air in Miami. He died in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1967 and is interred in a mausoleum in the City Cemetery in Lakeland, Georgia. Rivers is the most recent Georgia governor to have been born outside the state.