George Wallace

This article is about the governor of Alabama. For other uses, see George Wallace (disambiguation).

George C. Wallace, Jr.
48th Governor of Alabama
In office January 14, 1963 – January 16, 1967
Lieutenant	James B. Allen
Preceded by	John Malcolm Patterson
Succeeded by	Lurleen Wallace
In office January 18, 1971 – January 15, 1979
Lieutenant	Bill Baxley
Preceded by	Albert Brewer
Succeeded by	Fob James
In office January 17, 1983 – January 19, 1987
Preceded by	Fob James
Succeeded by	H. Guy Hunt
Personal details
Born	order2 (1919-08-25)August 25, 1919 Clio, Alabama
Died	September 13, 1998(1998-09-13) (aged 79) Montgomery, Alabama
Resting place	order2 order3
Political party	Democratic (Dixiecrat) American Independent Party (1968)
Spouses	Lurleen Wallace (deceased) Cornelia Ellis Snively (divorced) Lisa Taylor (divorced)
Parent	order2 order3
Profession	Lawyer

George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919– September 13, 1998), was a Governor of Alabama for four terms (1963-1967, 1971-1979 and 1983-1987). A Dixiecrat, he ran for U.S. President four times, running officially as a Democrat once and in the American Independent Party three times. He is best known for his pro-segregation attitudes and as a symbol of states' rights during the American desegregation period, which he modified later in life.

Early life

Wallace was born in Clio in Barbour County in southeastern Alabama to George Corley Wallace and Mozell Smith. He became a regionally successful boxer in his high school days, then went directly to law school at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1937. After receiving a law degree in 1942, he enlisted in the US Army Air Corps, flying combat missions over Japan during World War II. Wallace attained the rank of staff sergeant in the 58th Bomb Wing of the 20th Air Force Division. He served under General Curtis LeMay, who would be his running mate in the 1968 presidential race. While in the service, Wallace nearly died of spinal meningitis, but prompt medical attention saved him. He was left with partial hearing loss and nerve damage, and was medically discharged with a disability pension.

Entry into politics

In 1938, at age nineteen, Wallace contributed to his grandfather's successful campaign for probate judge. Late in 1945, he was appointed Assistant Attorney General of Alabama, and during May 1946, he won his first election as a member to the Alabama House of Representatives. At the time, he was considered a moderate on racial issues. As a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention, he did not join the Southern walkout at the convention, despite his opposition to President Harry S. Truman's proposed civil rights program, which he considered an infringement on states' rights. The dissenting Democrats, known as Dixiecrats, supported then-Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina for the presidency. In his 1963 inauguration as governor, Wallace excused this action on political grounds.

In 1953, he was elected judge in the Third Judicial Circuit Court. Here he became known as "the little fightin' judge," a reference to his boxing days.

A black lawyer recalls, "Judge George Wallace was the most liberal judge that I had ever practiced law in front of. He was the first judge in Alabama to call me 'Mister' in a courtroom." Later, when a supporter asked why he started using racist messages, Wallace replied, "You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor."

Failed run for governor

He was defeated by John Patterson in Alabama's Democratic gubernatorial primary election in 1958, which at the time was the decisive election, the general election still almost always being a mere formality. This was a political crossroads for Wallace. Patterson ran with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization Wallace had spoken against, while Wallace was endorsed by the NAACP. After the election, aide Seymore Trammell recalled Wallace saying, "Seymore, you know why I lost that governor's race?... I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I'll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again." In the wake of his defeat, Wallace adopted hard-line segregationism, and used this stand to court the white vote in the next gubernatorial election.

Governor of Alabama

From left to right: Governor Wallace, NASA Administrator James E. Webb and scientist Wernher von Braun at the Marshall Space Flight Center.

Wallace standing against desegregation while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach at the University of Alabama in 1963.

Segregation

He was elected governor in a landslide victory in November 1962. He took the oath of office on January 14, 1963, standing on the gold star where, 102 years prior, Jefferson Davis was sworn in as President of the Confederate States of America. In his inaugural speech, he used the line for which he is best known:

In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.

The lines were written by Wallace's new speechwriter, Asa Carter, a Klansman and longtime anti-Semite.

To stop desegregation by the enrollment of black students Vivian Malone and James Hood, he stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama on June 11, 1963. This became known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door." After being confronted by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard, he stood aside.

Wallace again attempted to stop four black students from enrolling in four separate elementary schools in Huntsville in September 1963. After intervention by a federal court in Birmingham, the four children were allowed to enter on September 9, becoming the first to integrate a primary or secondary school in Alabama.

Wallace disapproved vehemently of the desegregation of the state of Alabama and wanted desperately for his state to remain segregated. In his own words: "The President (John F. Kennedy) wants us to surrender this state to Martin Luther King and his group of pro-Communists who have instituted these demonstrations."

Economics and education

The principal achievement of Gov. Wallace's first term was an innovation in Alabama development several other states later adopted: he was the first Southern governor to travel to corporate headquarters in Northern and Northeastern states to offer tax abatements and other incentives to companies willing to locate plants in modern tire plant in Opelika, Alabama.

Wallace initiated a junior college system that is now spread throughout the state, preparing many students to complete four-year degrees at Auburn University or the University of Alabama.

Democratic presidential primaries of 1964

In November 15-20 of 1963, in the City of Dallas, Texas, George C. Wallace announced that he had intended to challenge the then 35th U.S. President, John F. Kennedy, for the Democratic Party's nomination as candidate for U.S. President for the November 1964 general election.

Using the segregationist image created by the University of Alabama controversy, he attempted to win national office in the 1964 presidential election. He ran on an "outsider" image, opposition to civil rights for blacks, message of states' rights, and "law and order" platform. In Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Indiana, he won a third of the vote in each.

First Gentleman of Alabama

A restriction in Alabama's state constitution prevented Wallace from seeking a second term in 1966. Therefore, Wallace had his wife, Lurleen Wallace, run for the office as a surrogate candidate, similar to the 1917 run of Miriam Ferguson for the governorship of Texas on behalf of her husband, who had been impeached and was barred from running. Largely due to the work of Wallace's supporters, the Alabama restriction was later repealed.

Mrs. Wallace won the election in the fall of 1966, and was inaugurated in January 1967.

Lurleen Wallace died in office on May 7, 1968, during her husband's presidential campaign. She was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer, reducing Wallace's influence until his new bid for election in his own right in 1970.

1968 third party presidential run

Wallace ran for President in the 1968 election as the American Independent Party candidate. He hoped to force the House of Representatives to decide the election by receiving enough electoral votes, presumably giving him the role of a power broker. Wallace hoped that southern states could use their clout to end federal efforts at desegregation. His platform contained generous increases for beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare.

Richard Nixon worried Wallace might steal enough votes to give the election to the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey. Some Democrats feared Wallace's appeal to blue-collar workers and union members would hurt Humphrey in Northern states like Ohio, New Jersey, and Michigan. Wallace ran a "law and order" campaign similar to Nixon's.

Wallace considered Happy Chandler, the former baseball commissioner and Governor of Kentucky, as his running mate in his 1968 campaign for the Presidency as a third party candidate; as one of Wallace's aides put it, "We have all the nuts in the country, we could get some decent people– you working one side of the street and he working the other side." Wallace invited Chandler, but when the press published the prospect, Wallace's supporters, especially the John Birch Society objected: Chandler had supported the hiring of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers, and had protected black children from violence during the integration of the Kentucky schools. Bunker Hunt, a major contributor, demanded the selection of Ezra Taft Benson, a leader of the Society, in Chandler's place.

Wallace retracted the invitation, and chose Air Force General Curtis LeMay instead. LeMay, now retired, was chairman of the board of an electronics company, and the company would dismiss him if he spent his time running for Vice-President; Hunt set up a million-dollar fund to reimburse him for any losses. LeMay was an enthusiast for the use of nuclear weapons; Wallace's aides spent until 4:30 in the morning before his first press conference attempting to explain to him that the American people did not agree, and to avoid such questions. He was asked about, and attempted to dispel, the American "phobia about nuclear weapons", discussing the radioactive landcrabs at Bikini atoll; this issue became a drag on Wallace's candidacy for the rest of the campaign.

Further information: Southern strategy

When Wallace pledged to run over any demonstrators who got in front of his limousine and asserted that the only four letter words hippies did not know were w-o-r-k and s-o-a-p, his rhetoric became famous. He accused Humphrey and Nixon of wanting to radically desegregate the South. Wallace said, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties." His campaign was supported by the John Birch Society.

While most of the media opposed Wallace, some southern newspapers enthusiastically backed him. George W. Shannon (1914–1998) of the now defunct Shreveport Journal, wrote countless editorials supporting the third-party concept. Wallace repaid Shannon by appearing at Shannon's retirement dinner.

While Wallace carried five Southern states and won almost ten million popular votes, Nixon received 301 electoral votes, more than needed to win the election. Wallace remains the last non-Democrat, non-Republican candidate to win any electoral votes. He was the first person to accomplish this since Harry F. Byrd, an independent segregationist candidate in the 1960 presidential election. (John Hospers in 1972, Ronald Reagan in 1976, Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and John Edwards in 2004 all received one electoral vote from dissenters, but none "won" these votes.) Wallace also received the vote of one North Carolina elector who was pledged to Nixon.

Many found Wallace an entertaining campaigner. To hippies who called him a Nazi, he replied, "I was killing fascists when you punks were in diapers." Another quote: "They're building a bridge over the Potomac for all the white liberals fleeing to Virginia."

Wallace decried the Supreme Court opinion in Alexander v. Holmes County Board of Education, which ordered immediate desegregation of Southern schools - he said the new Burger court was "no better than the Warren court" and called the justices "limousine hypocrites."

Second term as governor

In 1970, Wallace faced incumbent Governor Albert Brewer, who was the first gubernatorial candidate since Reconstruction to openly court black voters. Brewer unveiled a progressive platform and worked to build an alliance between blacks and the white working class. He said of Wallace's out of state trips, "Alabama needs a full-time governor."

To weaken the prospects of a presidential campaign in 1972, President Nixon backed Brewer and arranged an Internal Revenue Service investigation in the Wallace campaign. In the primary, Brewer got the most votes but failed to win an outright majority, triggering a run-off election.

The Wallace campaign aired TV ads with slogans such as "Do you want the black block electing your governor?" and circulated an ad showing a white girl surrounded by seven black boys, with the slogan "Wake Up Alabama! Blacks vow to take over Alabama." Wallace called Brewer "Sissy Britches" and promised not to run for president a third time.

Wallace defeated Brewer in the runoff. The day after the election, he flew to Wisconsin to campaign for the White House. Wallace, whose presidential ambitions would have been destroyed by a defeat, has been said to have run "one of the nastiest campaigns in state history," using racist rhetoric while proposing few ideas of his own.

Democratic presidential primaries of 1972

In early 1972, he declared himself a candidate, entering the field with George McGovern, 1968 nominee Hubert Humphrey, and nine other Democratic opponents. In Florida's primary, Wallace carried every county to win 42 percent of the vote. When running, Wallace claimed he was no longer for segregation, and had always been a moderate. Though no longer in favor of segregation, Wallace was opposed to desegregation busing during his campaign.

Assassination attempt

Wallace was shot five times by Arthur Bremer while campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, on May 15, 1972 at a time when he was receiving high ratings in the opinion polls. Bremer was seen at a Wallace rally in Wheaton, Maryland, earlier that day and two days earlier at a rally in Dearborn, Michigan. As one of the bullets lodged in Wallace's spinal column, Wallace was left paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. The three others who were wounded in the shooting also survived. Bremer's diary, An Assassin's Diary, published after his arrest shows the assassination attempt was motivated by a desire for fame, not by politics and that President Nixon had been an earlier target. Bremer was sentenced to fifty-three years in prison on 4 August 1972. He served thirty-five years and was released on parole on November 9, 2007.

Following the shooting, Wallace won primaries in Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee, and North Carolina. From his wheelchair, Wallace spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Miami on July 11, 1972. The Democratic nominee, South Dakota Senator George McGovern, was later defeated by President Nixon who carried 49 of the 50 states; McGovern only carried Massachusetts and the District of Columbia.

Since Wallace was out of Alabama for more than twenty days when he was recovering in Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, the state constitution required the lieutenant governor Jere Beasley to serve as acting governor from June 5 until Wallace's return to Alabama on July 7. Wallace never returned to Maryland again.

Wallace easily won the gubernatorial primary election election of November 1974.

Democratic presidential primaries of 1976

Wallace announced his third bid for the presidency in November 1975. The campaign was plagued by voters' concerns with his health, as well as the media's constant use of images of his apparent "helplessness." His supporters complained such coverage was motivated by bias, citing the discretion used in coverage three decades earlier, or lack of coverage, of Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralysis before television became commercially available. Jimmy Carter won the nomination. Calculating all the southern primaries and caucuses, Wallace only carried Mississippi, South Carolina and his home state of Alabama. Calculating the popular votes in all primaries and caucuses, Wallace placed third behind Jimmy Carter and California Governor Jerry Brown. After all the primaries ended losing several Southern primaries to former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, Wallace dropped out in June 1976. He eventually endorsed Carter, later claiming he facilitated a Southerner's nomination.

Final term as governor

Change of views

Wallace became a born-again Christian in the late 1970s and apologized for his earlier segregationist views to black civil rights leaders. He said while he once sought power and glory, he realized he needed to seek love and forgiveness. His term as Governor (1983–1987) saw a record number of black appointments to government positions.

In the 1982 Alabama gubernatorial Democratic primary, Wallace's main opponents were Lieutenant Governor George McMillan and Alabama House Speaker Joe McCorquodale. In the primary, McCorquodale was eliminated, and the vote went to a runoff with Wallace holding a slight edge over McMillian. Wallace won the Democratic nomination by a margin of 51 to 49 percent.

In the general election, his opponent was Montgomery Republican mayor Emory Folmar. Most polling experts said this was the best chance since Reconstruction for a Republican to be elected Alabama governor. However, Wallace easily won the general election, with a margin of 62 to 39 percent.

Not counting his wife's 17 months as governor, George Wallace achieved four gubernatorial terms across three decades, totaling 16 years in office.

Final years

At a Montgomery restaurant a few blocks from the State Capitol, Wallace became something of a fixture. In constant pain, he was surrounded by an entourage of old friends and visiting well-wishers and continued this ritual until a few weeks before his death.

Wallace was the subject of a documentary, George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire, shown by PBS on the American Experience in 2000.

On one occasion, when asked by a reporter which contemporary American political figure he most admired, he paused thoughtfully for a moment, smiled, and said: "Myself."

Wallace died of septic shock from a bacterial infection in Jackson Hospital in Montgomery on September 13, 1998. He suffered from Parkinson's disease and respiratory problems in addition to complications from his gun-shot spinal injury.

The George Wallace Tunnel on Interstate 10 which traverses the Mobile River is named in his honor.

Marriages and children

Wallace's first wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace, was the first (and, as of 2008, only) woman to be elected as governor of Alabama. They had four children together: Bobbi Jo (1944) Parsons, Peggy Sue (1950) Kennedy, George III (1951), and Janie Lee (1961) Dye, who was named after Robert E. Lee.

Lurleen died of cancer in 1968, while governor of Alabama. By the time of her funeral on May 9, Wallace had moved out of the governor's mansion and back to a home they had bought in Montgomery in 1967. Their children, aged 18, 16, and 6, were "distributed" to family members and friends for care (their eldest daughter had already married and left home).

Their son, commonly called George Wallace Jr., is a Republican active in Alabama politics. He was twice elected State Treasurer. He was an elected member of the Public Service Commission until he sought the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor. He lost in a runoff in July 2006.

George Wallace later remarried and divorced twice. On January 4, 1971, he wed Cornelia Ellis Snively, a niece of former Alabama Governor Jim Folsom ("Big Jim"). The couple were divorced in 1978. In 1981, Wallace married Lisa Taylor, a country music singer, but the relationship ended in 1987.

In popular culture

The "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" is featured in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. The sequence depicting this event is edited to make it appear that the film's lead character was part of the event. The film also showed footage of the attempted assassination of Wallace, which also was shown in the Oliver Stone film Nixon.

Drive-By Truckers released two songs on its 2001 album Southern Rock Opera referring to the life of George Wallace, entitled "The Three Great Alabama Icons" and "Wallace". Both songs deal heavily with his pro-segregationist views and how the state of Alabama, and the South as a whole, were seen because of his influence.

In the Charlie Daniels song "Uneasy Rider", a hippie driving through the South tries to talk his way out of being beaten up by a group of rednecks by accusing one of his would-be attackers of faking his redneck credentials: "Would you believe this man has gone as far as tearing Wallace stickers off the bumpers of cars? And he voted for George McGovern for President."

The play A Christmas Carol for George Wallace was produced by the Cripple Creek Theatre Company in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Famous comedian Bill Cosby mentions Wallace in his album 200 M.P.H.. During most of the title track, he talked about a sports car that he got from Carroll Shelby as a present and a "near death" experience driving the car. After expressing his fear over the car, he told the man "Take the keys and this car, it's all paid for, and you give it to George Wallace."

A 1997 TV movie titled George Wallace featuring Gary Sinise and Angelina Jolie was released.

"Sweet Home Alabama" is a song by Southern rock band Lynyrd Skynyrd that first appeared in 1974 on their second album, Second Helping. The memorable lines "In Birmingham, they love the governor, Boo, boo, boo! Now we all did what we could do" as well as "Sweet home Alabama, Oh sweet home baby, Where the skies are so blue, And the governor's true" are all widely interpreted to be references to Governor Wallace, and his attempt to enforce and defend segregation (which, though a failure, was still in keeping with his earlier promises).

P.J. Proby released a song on his 1969 album Three Week Hero titled "Jim's Blues/George Wallace Is Rollin' In This Mornin'." The song is notable for having all four members of Led Zeppelin as the backing group.

Neil Young briefly mentions the attempted assassination of George Wallace in one of his songs entitled "War Song", in which he sings: "They shot George Wallace down, He'll never walk around."

Further reading

• Carter, Dan T. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1995, 2000) ISBN: 0-8071-2597-0

External links

• Governor Wallace`s Schoolhouse Door speech archived at the University of Alabama
• George Wallace article at the Encyclopedia of Alabama
• George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire (web site). Web site for the PBS American Experience documentary, including a complete transcript, references to other Wallace information, and tools for teachers.
• George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire (2000) Internet Movie Database entry.
• Oral history interview by Jack Bass and Walter DeVries, July 1974 (Southern Oral History Program, UNC-Chapel Hill)
• Caught on Tape: The White House Reaction to the Shooting of Alabama Governor and Democratic Presidential Candidate George Wallace from History's News Network: http://hnn.us/articles/45104.html