David H. Gambrell
American politician (1929-2021)

David Henry Gambrell (December 20, 1929 – May 6, 2021) was an American attorney and politician from the U.S. state of Georgia who served as the chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party in the early 1970s and served in the United States Senate from 1971 to 1972.
Education and legal career
Gambrell was born in Atlanta, Georgia, on December 20, 1929, the son of Kathleen (Hagood) and Smythe Gambrell. He graduated from Davidson College in 1949, and received his JD, with honors, from Harvard Law School in 1952. He served in the reserves of the United States Army. After serving as a Teaching Fellow at Harvard and then as an associate and partner at the King & Spalding law firm in Atlanta, Gambrell founded Gambrell & Stolz, LLP in 1963. He served as president of the Atlanta Bar Association from 1965 to 1966, and as president of the State Bar of Georgia from 1967 to 1968. He also served in the American Bar Association House of Delegates, on the Board of Editors of the ABA Journal, and as Director of the National Legal Aid and Defender Association. In 2002, he received the State Bar of Georgia's Distinguished Service Award, and the Atlanta Bar Association, in 2007, honored him with their Leadership Award.
Political career
Gambrell went on to take part in state politics, serving as chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party from 1970 to 1971. In 1971, upon the death of U.S. Senate member Richard Russell Jr., Governor of Georgia Jimmy Carter appointed Gambrell to the United States Senate to finish Russell's term, where he served during the years 1971 and 1972.
“David H. Gambrell” enters the record as american politician (1929-2021). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what David, Gambrell and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Chronology provides the most reliable spine for this subject; interpretation should follow only after identities and dates are secure. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5234522. VIAF identifies the subject as 21336942. The Library of Congress control number is n92074676. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1929, 2021, 1971 and 1972.
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This entry incorporates text from “David H. Gambrell” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.