Longtime educator Charlie Bedford died last Saturday at 87 after a battle with COVID-19, depriving Atlanta of one of its longest and most consistent proponents of dialogue and exchange with the world.
Born in Wayne County, North Carolina, in 1933, Mr. Bedford moved to Atlanta in in 1979.
He led the Atlanta Council on International Relations for more than a decade and also directed the University Center in Georgia, a consortium of 19 schools, helping awaken them to the world by inviting members of the local consular corps to speak.
Actively recruiting diplomats and global affairs experts for monthly ACIR luncheons, Mr. Bedford was involved in hosting ambassadors from Germany, France, Mexico, United Kingdom, Greece, Belgium, South Korea and other countries.
Among many other honors and titles, Mr. Bedford received the National Order of Merit from the French government for his role in fostering cross-cultural connections.
The Georgia Council of International Visitors, of which he was a longtime supporter and board member, awarded him with its Citizen Diplomat Award in 2015 — an honor that has only been distributed to a few worthy candidates in the organization’s more than 50-year history. Mr. Bedford often supported the council’s annual consular ball, which honors the city’s diplomatic corps.
“GCIV is so disheartened at the passing of longtime GCIV volunteer and benefactor Charlie Bedford,” said Executive Director Emily Shaw in a statement to Global Atlanta. “Charlie was a pillar of Georgia’s international community and a shining example of a citizen diplomat. We will miss him terribly and extend our deepest condolences to his family and loved ones.”
Mr. Bedford and Nancy, his wife of 57 years, also traveled abroad with the Atlanta-based Friendship Force, an organization which emerged out of President Jimmy Carter’s global outreach. The Bedfords went to China just after its opening to the West in 1984, New Zealand and Australia in 1997 and South Africa toward the end of the apartheid era in 1993, “where they were hosted by both a family who had been classified as ‘coloured’ in Cape Town and by a white Afrikaner family in Carnarvon, North Cape Town Province,” according to an obituary circulated in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Mr. Bedford served as president of the International Club of Atlanta and chair of the international committee at the Rotary Club of Atlanta, and he and Nancy regularly hosted international students at their home, including a Portuguese Georgia Tech MBA student whose family grew close with the Bedfords after he stayed with them in 1995 as part of a Rotary scholarship.
Known for his dry sense of humor and warm heart, Mr. Bedford was the “consummate Southern gentleman,” current ACIR President Bob Kennedy in a statement to the organization’s members and contacts.
“With great wit, a gentle humility and a wonderfully dry sense of humor, Charlie treated everyone with respect and dignity and in turn was loved and respected by all who knew him,” Mr. Kennedy said. “He will be sorely missed by all whose paths the crossed. But his spirit will live on with those who knew him. Our prayers go out to his family and especially to his wife Nancy.”
Before moving to Atlanta, Mr. Bedford visited the city in 1955 during his senior year at East Carolina University, where he was president of the senior class and of the Southern Area Student Council of the YMCA.
Being housed at Morehouse College and meeting Benjamin Mays, the civil rights leader and college president, “had a profound impact on his life,” according to the obituary.
Proud of his Methodist, Baptist and Quaker affiliations, Mr. Bedford also was heavily involved in establishing a variety of retirement homes around the U.S., including in Georgia.
Fittingly given his lifelong commitment to understanding and education, the Bedfords set up the Charlie and Nancy Bedford Study Abroad Schools Program at East Carolina for the benefit of students pursuing degrees in the College of Arts and Sciences.
More from the obituary, which can be read in its entirety here:
Mr. Bedford is survived by his wife, Nancy, sister Agnes Sullivan, and nephew, Brent Taylor, of Kenly, N.C., nephew Phil Bedford (Janice) of Goldsboro, N.C. and nephew, Allen Bedford (Eucalon) of Tampa, Florida.
A private burial is to be held in the Memorial Garden of Trinity Presbyterian Church at a later date. In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in Charlie’s memory to Presbyterian Homes of Georgia, PO Box 926 Quitman, GA 31643 or phgainc.org/donate. Donations may be made in Charlie’s memory to ECU Foundation Inc. Please add “Bedford Study Abroad” on the memo line and mail to the Office of Gift Records, East Carolina University, 2200 S. Charles Blvd., Suite 2213, Greenville, NC 27858.
GSU-CIBER is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Education Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Education newsletters.
The Dean Rusk International Law Center at the University of Georgia is the presenting sponsor of Global Atlanta's Diplomacy Channel. Subscribe here for monthly Diplomacy newsletters.