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Charles Longstreet Weltner was a politician from the U.S. state of Georgia.
Weltner was born in Atlanta, Georgia. In 1948, he received a bachelor's degree from Oglethorpe University in suburban DeKalb County, Georgia. In 1950, he received a law degree from Columbia Law School in New York City. After serving two years in the United States Army, Weltner practiced law in Atlanta and served as an advocate for civil rights.
In 1962, Weltner was elected to represent Georgia's 5th congressional district in the House of Representatives as a Democrat. Once in office, he was the only member of the Georgia congressional delegation to vote for the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He also supported quick implementation of the United States Supreme Court decision to outlaw racial segregation in public schools, the 1954 decision Brown v. Board of Education. In 1966, Weltner refused to run for reelection when the state Democratic Party demanded that he sign a loyalty oath that would have required him to support Lester Maddox, an ardent segregationist who was running for governor against a Republican U.S. representative, Howard Callaway. In a speech, Weltner stated "I love the Congress, but I will give up my office before I give up my principles." No other had taken the loyalty oath so literally. Weltner described Maddox as "the very symbol of violence and repression." Nevertheless, Maddox was chosen governor by the state legislature as a result of a general election impasse with Callaway and former Governor Ellis Arnall, who received critical votes as a write-in candidate. Maddox ridiculed Weltner for abandoning the House race: "Anyone who would give up his seat in Congress is sick." Conversely, U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr., hailed Weltner's courage for rejecting Maddox. The Macon Telegraph decreed Weltner "a public servant greatly to be admired." The Savannah Morning News termed Weltner "a man of principle" but repudiated his "foolhardy liberalism."
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