George Wallace

This article is about the American politician, former governor of Alabama and former presidential candidate. For other people with the same name please see George Wallace (disambiguation).

Governor George Wallace (in front of door) standing defiantly against desegregation while being confronted by Deputy U.S. Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach at the University of Alabama in 1963.

George Corley Wallace or officially George C. Wallace, Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998), was an American politician who was elected Governor of Alabama as a Democrat four times (1962, 1970, 1974 and 1982) and ran for U.S. President four times, running as a Democrat in 1964, 1972, and 1976, and as the American Independent Party candidate in 1968. He is best known for his pro-segregation attitudes, which he later recanted, during the American desegregation period.

Wives and children

His first wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace, was the first (and, as of 2006, 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 while she was serving as governor of Alabama in 1968. By the time of her funeral on May 9, George Wallace had moved out of the governor's mansion and back to a home they had bought in Montgomery in 1967. He did not take his children with him; aged 18, 15, and 5, they were distributed to family members and friends. (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 as State Treasurer. He currently serves as an elected member of the Public Service Commission and sought the GOP nomination for lieutenant governor. He lost in a runoff in July 2006, despite support obtained from popular Arizona U.S. Senator John McCain.

After he was widowed, George Wallace remarried twice. Both marriages ended in divorce. In 1971, he wed Cornelia Ellis Snively, a niece of former Alabama Governor James E. Folsom ("Big Jim"). The couple were divorced in 1978. In 1981 Wallace married Lisa Taylor, a country music singer. That relationship ended in 1987.

Education and military service

Born on August 25, 1919, in Clio, Alabama, to George C. Wallace and Mozelle Smith, he became a regionally successful boxer in his high school days before directly on to law school at the University of Alabama in 1937 [1]. After receiving his law degree in 1942, he enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps, flying combat missions over Japan during World War II. Wallace rose to the rank of staff sergeant in the 58th Bomb Wing of the Twentieth Air Force. He served under General Curtis LeMay, who would be his running mate in the 1968 presidential race. While in the service, Wallace nearly died from an attack of spinal meningitis. Only prompt medical attention saved his life. The experience left him with partial hearing loss and nerve damage and as a result, he was medically discharged from the military with a disability pension.

Early political activities

In 1928, at 9 years old, 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 somewhat of a progressive liberal on racial issues. As a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Convention he did not join the Southern walkout at the convention, despite being opposed to President Harry Truman's proposed civil rights program, which he then considered to have been 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.

Governor of Alabama

In 1958 he was defeated by John Patterson in Alabama's Democratic gubernatorial primary election, which at this point in Alabama history still was the decisive election, the general election still almost always being a mere formality. This was a political crossroads for Wallace; Patterson had run with the support of the Ku Klux Klan, an organization Wallace had spoken out against, while Wallace had been endorsed by the NAACP.

In the wake of his defeat, Wallace adopted a hard-line segregationist style, and used this stand to court the white vote in the next gubernatorial election. In 1962, he was elected governor on a pro-segregation, pro-states' rights platform in a landslide victory. Symbolically, he took the oath of office standing on the gold star where 102 years before 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. Wallace later stated that he had not read this part of the speech prior to delivering it, and that he had regretted it almost immediately. However, he did not hesitate to repeat it.

On June 11, 1963 he stood in front of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in an attempt to stop desegregation of that institution by the enrollment of two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood. This became known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door." Wallace stood aside only after being confronted by federal marshals, Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, and the Alabama National Guard. However, there is ample evidence that the entire encounter was partially or wholly coordinated with the Kennedy administration to allow Wallace to save face with Alabama voters.

Presidential ambitions

Using the infamous public image created by the University of Alabama controversy, he mounted his first presidential campaign in 1964, showing surprising strength as a national candidate in Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Indiana, winning as much as a third of the vote. His "outsider" image, opposition to civil rights for blacks, and message of states' rights appeared to have national appeal.

Wallace ran again as a third-party candidate in 1968, and as a Democrat in 1972 and 1976. (See below)

Power behind the throne

Alabama's state constitution prevented him from seeking a second term in 1966, a restriction that was eventually repealed, largely due to the work of his backers—but not in time for Wallace himself to run that year.

Wallace circumvented this by having his wife, Lurleen Wallace, run for the office as a surrogate candidate, similar to the 1917 run of Ma Ferguson for the governorship of Texas on behalf of her husband, who had been impeached and was barred from running himself. Mrs. Wallace won the election in the fall of 1966, and was inaugurated in January, 1967.

Lurleen Wallace died in office in 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.

American Independent Party presidential candidate

When Wallace ran for President in 1968, it was not as a Democrat but as a candidate of the American Independent Party. He hoped to receive enough electoral votes to force the House of Representatives to decide the election, presumably giving him the role of a power broker. Wallace hoped that Southern states could use their clout to extract concessions to end federal efforts at desegregation. This did not occur.

Wallace ran a "law and order" campaign similar to that of Republican candidate, former Vice President Richard Nixon (see Southern strategy), worrying Nixon that Wallace might steal enough votes to give the election to the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey.

In fact, Wallace's presence in race negated the Southern Strategy, split the conservative vote and brought Humphrey within a few hundred thousand votes of winning. Wallace's rhetoric could often be violent, such as pledging to run over any demonstrators who got in front of his limousine. He accused Humphrey and Nixon of wanting to radically desegregate the South, and promised to stop black progress. Wallace said, "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the Democrat and Republican Parties." His campaign in California and other states was a haven for some on the far right, including the John Birch Society.

Most media opposed Wallace, but he won the enthusiastic editorial backing of some southern newspapers. George W. Shannon (1914–1998) of the now defunct Shreveport Journal, for instance, wrote countless editorials supporting the third-party concept in presidential elections. Wallace repaid Shannon by appearing at Shannon's retirement dinner.

Wallace's "outsider" status was once again popular with voters, particularly in the rural South, where his strident racism brought out much support from white voters. He carried five Southern states, coming fairly close to receiving enough electoral votes to throw the election to the House of Representatives, and making him the last person (as of 2006) to win electoral votes who was not the nominee of one of the two major parties and the first since Harry F. Byrd, an independent segregationist candidate in the 1960 presidential election. (John Hospers (Libertarian Party) 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). Additionally, Wallace received the vote of one North Carolina elector who was pledged to Nixon.

Many found Wallace an entertaining campaigner, regardless of whether they approved of his opinions. To hippies who said he was a Nazi, he replied, "I was killing fascists when you punks were in diapers." To other hippies, he said, "You shout four letter words at me, well, I have two for you: W-O-R-K and S-O-A-P." Another memorable quote: "They're building a bridge over the Potomac for all the white liberals fleeing to Virginia."

Wallace said he disagreed with Abraham Lincoln that blacks should be able to vote, serve on juries, or hold public office—although he agreed with Lincoln that equality for blacks could come with education, uplift, and time. (Before the Storm, Rick Perlstein, pg. 317) However, his platform also contained a few progressive planks, such as generous increases for beneficiaries of Social Security and Medicare. Still, in his speeches and in the public mind, Wallace promoted an anti-black, anti-intellectual populist view of America.

Second term as governor

In 1970 he was elected governor of Alabama for a second term. He faced incumbent governor Albert Brewer, who became the first gubernatorial candidate since Reconstruction to openly court black voters. Brewer, hoping to build a broad alliance between blacks and white working class voters, unveiled a progressive platform and accused Wallace of spending too much time outside the state, saying "Alabama needs a full-time governor."

In an effort to weaken the prospects of another presidential campaign in 1972, President Nixon backed Brewer in the Democratic primary, while at the same time arranging an IRS investigation of possible illegalities in the Wallace campaign. Brewer got the most votes in the primary but failed to win an outright majority, leading to a run-off.

Wallace, whose presidential ambitions would have been destroyed with a defeat, ran "one of the nastiest campaigns in state history", using racist rhetoric while proposing few ideas of his own. The Wallace campaign aired TV ads with slogans like "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 a sissy and promised not to run for president a third time.

The campaign worked, and Wallace defeated Brewer in the runoff. The day after the election, he flew to Wisconsin to campaign for the White House.

A Gallup Poll at the time showed Wallace to be the seventh most admired man in America, just ahead of Pope Paul VI.

In early 1972, he once again declared himself a candidate for president, this time as a Democrat. When running in Florida against the liberal George McGovern, 1968 nominee Hubert H. Humphrey, and nine other Democratic opponents, Wallace won forty-two percent of the vote, carrying every county in the state.

File:Wallace button.gif

Wallace campaign button

While campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, on May 15, 1972, Wallace was shot five times by a would-be assassin named Arthur Bremer. Three other people were wounded in the shooting; all survived. Bremer's diary, published after his arrest as An Assassin's Diary, showed that Bremer's assassination attempt was not motivated by politics, but by a desire to become famous, and that President Nixon had also been a possible target. The assassination attempt left Wallace paralyzed, as one of the bullets that hit him had lodged in his spinal column.

Following the shooting, Wallace won primaries in Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Wallace spoke at the Democratic National Convention from his wheelchair in Miami on July 11, 1972. The eventual Democratic nominee, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota would be defeated by President Nixon in a landslide, with Nixon carrying 49 of the 50 states, losing only in liberal Massachusetts.

While Wallace was recovering in a Maryland hospital, he was out of the state for more than 20 days, so the state constitution required the lieutenant governor, Jere Beasley, to serve as acting governor from June 5 until Wallace returned to Alabama on July 7.

In November 1975, Wallace announced his fourth and final bid for the presidency. The following campaign was plagued by voters' concerns with his health problems, as well as the media's constant use of images of his apparent "helplessness." His supporters complained such coverage was politically motivated by bias against him, citing the discretion used by some of the same organizations in coverage, or rather the lack of coverage, of the paralysis of Franklin Delano Roosevelt three decades earlier. After losing several Southern primaries to former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, Wallace dropped out of the race in June 1976, eventually endorsing Carter while boasting that he had made it possible for a Southerner to be nominated for president.

Change of views before final term

In the late 1970s Wallace became a born-again Christian, and around the same time apologized to black civil rights leaders for his earlier segregationist views, calling these views wrong. He said that while once he had sought power and glory, he realized he needed to seek love and forgiveness. It was because of this change in his worldview that Wallace realized the harm his earlier segregationist rhetoric and views had caused. His final term as Governor (1983–1987) saw a record number of black Alabamians appointed to government positions.

Counting Lurleen Wallace's term as his surrogate, George Wallace had the remarkable achievement of winning five gubernatorial terms scattered over three decades, adding up to over seventeen years in office. It would have been twenty if Lurleen had served four full years instead of the 17 months she survived. This record is approached, but not matched, by the 15-year tenure of Governor Nelson A. Rockefeller in New York, the 14-year tenure (in consecutive terms) of Governor James R. Thompson of Illinois and by the sixteen-year tenures attained by Governors Terry E. Branstad of Iowa (in consecutive terms),and Governors James A. Rhodes of Ohio, Edwin Washington Edwards of Louisiana, and James B. "Jim" Hunt of North Carolina (in non-consecutive terms).

Final years

In his later days, he became something of a fixture at a Montgomery restaurant only a few blocks from the State Capitol which he had almost totally run in the past. Despite being in pain, he was surrounded by an entourage of old friends and visiting well-wishers. He continued this ritual until only a few weeks before his death, by which time he had grown too ill.

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 rose to power on the politics of racism, but he was not simply a racist. 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."

Wallace died from a bacterial blood infection in Montgomery, Alabama on September 13, 1998.

Wallace in pop culture

The "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door" features in the 1994 film Forrest Gump. The video sequence depicting this event is edited to make it appear the film's lead character was part of the event. The movie also showed the footage of Wallace's attempted assassination.

The Drive-By Truckers released 2 songs on their 2002 album Southern Rock Opera referring to 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 was seen because of his influence.

Wallace is referenced in the Lynyrd Skynyrd song, "Sweet Home Alabama", in the line "In Birmingham they love the governor, now we all did what we could do." By allegedly praising Wallace, a rallying figure for anti-black whites, many believed Skynyrd was suggesting that Alabama was proudly segregationist even into the 1970s. However, many will point to the jeer "Boo! Boo! Boo!" heard at the end of the controversial line as evidence that the band was actually condemning Wallace's actions and segregationist stance.

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

Famous African American 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, and told the man "Take the keys and this car, it's all paid for, and you give it to George Wallace."

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: 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.