On November 21, 1934, the five-member nucleus of the Southeastern Governors' Conference met with President Franklin D. Roosevelt to discuss the inequitable railroad rate system that put Southern industry at a disadvantage compared with the rest of the country. This issue was the subject of the conference's first resolution and, after 11 years of work, the governors succeeded in having the Interstate Commerce Commission abolish the rate-differential system.

From that time on, Southern governors have been deeply involved in the major challenges to the region, from diversification of the South's heavily agricultural economy and expansion of opportunities for higher education in the 1940s to nuclear energy in the 1950s, economic development in the 1970s, infant mortality in the 1980s and striking a better state/federal balance in the 1990s and early 2000s. As the logical outgrowth of SGA, governors created several other regional organizations, including Southern Growth Policies Board (SGPB), Southern States Energy Board (SSEB), Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and Travel South USA.

As the years have gone by, the number of member governors has grown from five in 1934 to 18 in 1969. With little exception, the membership has stayed the same since then. In 1978, the governors adopted the present name of the Southern Governors' Association (SGA), and in the early 1980s, SGA moved its office from Atlanta, Georgia, to Washington, D.C., to raise the region's profile in the nation's capital.

In 2009, SGA celebrated its 75th anniversary and created an extensive exhibit showcasing the American South's remarkable transformation from what President Franklin D. Roosevelt called "the nation's #1 economic problem" in 1934 to what is considered the world's third largest economy today. Click here to view "A Legacy of Progress."