WEBVTT - SYMHC Classics: George Wallace 0:00:02.320 --> 0:00:05.600 Happy Saturday. This week, when we talked about the Camden 0:00:05.640 --> 0:00:08.520 twenty eight we mentioned that there was a George Wallace 0:00:08.600 --> 0:00:12.959 campaign rally during that trial. Today, George Wallace is better 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.720 known for his time as governor of Alabama, but at 0:00:16.720 --> 0:00:20.239 the time he was running for president. Our episode on 0:00:20.320 --> 0:00:24.200 George Wallace originally came out on November twenty ninth, twenty sixteen, 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:30.360 and it is Today's Saturday Classic. Welcome to Stuff You 0:00:30.440 --> 0:00:41.000 Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and 0:00:41.040 --> 0:00:43.839 Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tray CV Wilson, and I'm 0:00:43.840 --> 0:00:46.920 Holly Frye. Over the past few years, Holly, you and 0:00:46.920 --> 0:00:49.080 I have talked about a number of prominent figures and 0:00:49.159 --> 0:00:52.960 moments in the civil rights movement. That is correct. So 0:00:53.000 --> 0:00:55.720 we've talked about people like Rosa Parks and bired Rustin, 0:00:55.760 --> 0:00:58.720 and we've talked about Supreme Court decisions like Brown versus 0:00:58.760 --> 0:01:03.040 Board and Loving versus for Time, organizations like the Brotherhood 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:06.400 of Sleeping Car Porters. But other than talking sort of 0:01:07.920 --> 0:01:11.280 obliquely about the laws and practices and social systems that 0:01:11.360 --> 0:01:15.240 have enforced segregation and discrimination in the United States, as 0:01:15.280 --> 0:01:18.840 well as talking about some specific incidents of racist violence 0:01:19.400 --> 0:01:23.440 like the destruction of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:28.000 We've never really talked a lot about the opposition to 0:01:28.080 --> 0:01:31.520 that movement, So today we are talking about one of 0:01:31.600 --> 0:01:34.800 the most prominent voices against the civil rights movement and 0:01:34.840 --> 0:01:39.520 its objectives, Alabama Governor George Wallace, who spent multiple campaigns 0:01:39.520 --> 0:01:43.040 to both governor and president on an explicitly pro segregation platform. 0:01:43.920 --> 0:01:47.440 In his nineteen sixty three inaugural addresses Governor of Alabama, 0:01:47.560 --> 0:01:54.840 he famously proclaimed segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. So 0:01:54.880 --> 0:01:58.360 we're going to be talking about violent retaliation against the 0:01:58.360 --> 0:02:01.720 civil rights civil rights movement that happened during his terms 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:04.160 in office. And we're also going to be talking a 0:02:04.200 --> 0:02:08.280 lot about his first wife, Lurline. He was married other times, 0:02:08.280 --> 0:02:09.920 so we're not really getting into that at all, but 0:02:10.440 --> 0:02:14.160 are going to talk about Lurline, whose own story is 0:02:14.200 --> 0:02:18.679 both tied directly to her husband's political career and includes 0:02:18.720 --> 0:02:25.160 a pretty disturbing account of medical neglect. So George Corley Wallace, 0:02:25.240 --> 0:02:28.600 Junior was born on August twenty fifth of nineteen nineteen 0:02:28.760 --> 0:02:32.520 in southeastern Alabama, where his father was a farmer. His 0:02:32.520 --> 0:02:35.239 political career started very early, at the age of fifteen, 0:02:35.480 --> 0:02:38.200 when he served as a government page at the Alabama 0:02:38.240 --> 0:02:40.960 State Capitol and made up his mind to return one 0:02:41.040 --> 0:02:44.239 day as governor. In his high school years, he was 0:02:44.280 --> 0:02:47.560 also a boxer, winning two state titles in that sport. 0:02:48.560 --> 0:02:51.680 Wallace studied at the University of Alabama, paying his tuition 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.640 by waiting tables and boxing. He graduated in nineteen thirty 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:59.240 seven and then finished his law degree in nineteen forty two. 0:02:59.320 --> 0:03:01.640 That same year, at the age of twenty four, he 0:03:01.720 --> 0:03:04.519 met Lurline Burns, who was then sixteen, while she was 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:07.520 working at a five and dime in Tuscaloosa. She had 0:03:07.560 --> 0:03:10.120 graduated from high school early, and she was working there 0:03:10.160 --> 0:03:12.440 to try to save up money to go to nursing school. 0:03:13.080 --> 0:03:16.919 George was already very interested in politics, something that didn't 0:03:16.919 --> 0:03:20.240 really interest Lurline at all, but they quickly became inseparable. 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:24.120 Not long after they met, Wallace was inducted into the 0:03:24.240 --> 0:03:26.600 US Army Air Corps to serve in World War Two. 0:03:27.520 --> 0:03:29.919 He and Lerleine got married on May twenty first of 0:03:30.000 --> 0:03:32.800 nineteen forty three, while he was on leave after having 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:37.200 contracted meningitis. They spent their honeymoon in a friend's guest room. 0:03:37.360 --> 0:03:41.720 Although George spent a lot of his time out talking politics. 0:03:42.280 --> 0:03:45.320 While he was still stateside, Leerleine traveled back and forth 0:03:45.360 --> 0:03:48.240 between her parents' home in Alabama and the air bases 0:03:48.240 --> 0:03:51.160 where he was stationed. This included a trip to New Mexico, 0:03:51.320 --> 0:03:54.000 which she made with their five month old daughter, Bobby Joe, 0:03:54.400 --> 0:03:56.920 only to find that George had not arranged housing for 0:03:56.960 --> 0:03:59.080 them on the base. They wound up needing to stay 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.120 in a converted chicken. Soon a Georgia b stationed in 0:04:03.160 --> 0:04:06.600 the Pacific, where he flew incendiary missions over Japan until 0:04:06.600 --> 0:04:11.000 being medically discharged for severe anxiety in nineteen forty five. 0:04:12.240 --> 0:04:15.960 In nineteen forty six, he started actively pursuing a political career. 0:04:16.279 --> 0:04:18.680 He became assistant to the state attorney General, and in 0:04:18.760 --> 0:04:21.560 nineteen forty seven he was elected to the Alabama State 0:04:21.640 --> 0:04:25.120 Legislature as representative for the first of his two terms. 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:30.360 During his campaign, Lerlin was the family's sole breadwinner. He 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:33.560 was elected a judge for the Third Judicial Court in 0:04:33.680 --> 0:04:37.360 nineteen fifty three, a position that he retained until nineteen 0:04:37.440 --> 0:04:41.760 fifty eight, and this job came with enough income for 0:04:41.839 --> 0:04:44.599 him to buy a home for the family. Up until 0:04:44.600 --> 0:04:46.560 this point, they had been living in a variety of 0:04:46.640 --> 0:04:50.760 rented rooms and garage apartments, and his nickname became Fighting 0:04:50.800 --> 0:04:54.000 Little Judge, both for his toughness from the bench and 0:04:54.080 --> 0:04:56.880 his former time as a boxer while he was in school. 0:04:57.839 --> 0:05:00.839 Over the same time, he and Lerlein had two more children, 0:05:00.960 --> 0:05:04.000 Peggy Sue born in nineteen fifty and George Corley Wallace 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.599 the third known as George Junior, in nineteen fifty one, 0:05:07.200 --> 0:05:11.880 and Lurline was increasingly frustrated by her husband's devotion to politics, 0:05:11.920 --> 0:05:15.800 often to the neglect of his family. At this point 0:05:15.800 --> 0:05:18.840 in his career, people were calling George Wallace quote a 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:22.960 dangerous liberal. He was part of charismatic Governor Big Jim 0:05:23.000 --> 0:05:27.560 Fulsom's re election campaign in nineteen fifty three. Fulsom was 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.960 also Wallace's mentor, and in later years would be described 0:05:31.200 --> 0:05:33.480 as being way ahead of his time in terms of 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:38.279 social progress and racial equality. Fulsom's positions during his career 0:05:38.360 --> 0:05:41.680 included things like voting rights for black people, an end 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.440 to prison labor, better schools, funding for roads to make 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:48.000 it easier for farmers to get their crops to market, 0:05:48.520 --> 0:05:52.440 and more government positions for women. Much of this, of course, 0:05:52.560 --> 0:05:56.479 was an uphill battle and ultimately failed. A lot of 0:05:56.480 --> 0:06:00.560 Wallace's policies in the earlier part of his career mostly 0:06:00.600 --> 0:06:03.920 mirrored Fulsom's. During his two terms in the state legislature, 0:06:03.960 --> 0:06:08.440 he drafted legislation to promote vocational schools and attract manufacturing 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.040 jobs to Alabama. In nineteen forty eight, when pro segregation 0:06:12.160 --> 0:06:15.760 Dixiecrats walked out of the Democratic National Convention, both Wallace 0:06:15.800 --> 0:06:20.320 and Fulsom stayed put. While in office in the State 0:06:20.320 --> 0:06:24.560 House of Representatives, Wallace sponsored a bill that taxed alcohol 0:06:24.640 --> 0:06:28.400 to fund trade schools. The Wallace Act, which was signed 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:30.760 in nineteen fifty one and was half of what became 0:06:30.760 --> 0:06:34.520 known as the Wallace Cater Acts, allowed municipalities to sell 0:06:34.600 --> 0:06:38.520 bonds in order to fund industrial development. This was part 0:06:38.520 --> 0:06:41.240 of an effort to bring jobs to Alabama and diversify 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:46.240 the state's economy. Critics called the Wallace Cater Acts socialistic. 0:06:46.720 --> 0:06:49.520 Another criticism was that most of the industries that moved 0:06:49.560 --> 0:06:54.400 into Alabama through the act's incentive were low wage, non 0:06:54.520 --> 0:06:58.280 union work that paid lower than the national average. In 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:01.120 nineteen fifty eight, Wallace embarked in his first campaign to 0:07:01.160 --> 0:07:03.960 be the governor of Alabama. He continued on with the 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:07.839 kind of populist policies and relatively moderate positions on racial 0:07:07.839 --> 0:07:11.160 equality that he had up until this point. Obviously that 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.760 is not his entire platform, but you know, he was 0:07:13.800 --> 0:07:17.800 sort of continuing similar similarly to what his mentor had 0:07:17.880 --> 0:07:21.040 and Big Jim Folsom had been elected on a similar 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.320 platform in both nineteen forty six and nineteen fifty four. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:29.000 But Wallace's opponent in the Democratic primary was Attorney General 0:07:29.080 --> 0:07:33.760 John Patterson. Patterson was running on a pro segregation platform 0:07:33.800 --> 0:07:37.440 supported by the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace, on the other hand, 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:40.280 had the support of the National Association for the Advancement 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:45.320 of Colored People or NAACP. The primary went into a runoff, 0:07:45.360 --> 0:07:48.880 with Patterson beating Wallace and then beating the Republican candidate, 0:07:48.920 --> 0:07:54.040 William Longshore by a landslide. When asked what had gone wrong, 0:07:54.360 --> 0:07:58.960 Wallace reportedly told supporters some version of the following quote, 0:07:59.040 --> 0:08:01.480 which uses a slow that we are not going to 0:08:01.480 --> 0:08:06.560 repeat quote. I got out enwarded by John Patterson. This 0:08:06.640 --> 0:08:08.920 is the first and last time I will be out 0:08:09.040 --> 0:08:13.880 inwarded by another candidate. This quote and variations on it 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:17.320 have been widely reported, but Wallace would later deny ever, 0:08:17.440 --> 0:08:22.560 saying it Apart from shifting his politics on race completely, 0:08:22.760 --> 0:08:26.960 this loss for governor took a toll on Wallace's personal life. Lerline, 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:30.000 fed up with his absences and rumors of infidelity and 0:08:30.040 --> 0:08:32.480 a deep depression that he went into following the loss, 0:08:32.559 --> 0:08:35.840 took the children to her parents' house and filed for divorce. 0:08:36.480 --> 0:08:39.480 George begged her to come back, and the two eventually reconciled, 0:08:39.480 --> 0:08:43.000 and their last child, Jamie Lee, named after Robert E. Lee, 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:46.840 was born. In nineteen sixty one, Wallace returned to his 0:08:46.880 --> 0:08:49.560 position in the circuit court, where he turned his attention 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:53.640 to blocking federal efforts at civil rights. When the US 0:08:53.720 --> 0:08:57.079 Civil Rights Commission requested that he turn over voting records, 0:08:57.160 --> 0:08:59.680 he refused to do it and was threatened with prison 0:08:59.760 --> 0:09:03.319 for contempt. He wound up turning the records over by 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:05.679 handing them over to grand Juries to turn in on 0:09:05.720 --> 0:09:08.240 his behalf so he could say that he had not 0:09:08.360 --> 0:09:12.080 personally given the government those records, but he could also 0:09:12.120 --> 0:09:15.800 stay out of jail. In nineteen sixty two, Wallace ran 0:09:15.880 --> 0:09:19.200 for governor again. This time he took a pro segregation 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.840 pro states rights platform, and like John Patterson, got the 0:09:22.840 --> 0:09:26.160 support of the Ku Klux Klan. He won the Democratic 0:09:26.200 --> 0:09:30.280 primary after a runoff, and the Republican Party fielded no 0:09:30.400 --> 0:09:33.160 candidate at all in the election. Even though he was 0:09:33.240 --> 0:09:36.200 running unopposed, he got more than three hundred thousand votes, 0:09:36.640 --> 0:09:39.560 more than any candidate in Alabama history at that time. 0:09:40.280 --> 0:09:44.760 That infamous Segregation Forever inaugural address was co written by 0:09:44.840 --> 0:09:48.400 klansman Asa Carter, who could easily be his own podcast 0:09:48.440 --> 0:09:51.640 subject as he also wrote The Education of Little Tree 0:09:51.880 --> 0:09:55.000 in the rebel outlaw Josie Wales under the pseudonym of 0:09:55.080 --> 0:09:59.640 Forrest Carter. Wallace's first term saw some of the most 0:09:59.760 --> 0:10:03.120 note tentorious incidents of racist violence in the civil rights movement, 0:10:03.240 --> 0:10:06.840 with critics blaming Wallace's rhetoric for stoking the fire and 0:10:06.920 --> 0:10:09.400 we are going to talk about it after a quick 0:10:09.400 --> 0:10:21.280 sponsor break. Although there were certainly incidents of racial violence 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.280 before George Wallace took office in Alabama, and that violence 0:10:25.440 --> 0:10:29.040 was not confined just to Alabama, some of the most 0:10:29.080 --> 0:10:32.120 infamous incidents in the United States civil rights movement happened 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:36.520 there during his first term. On May second, nineteen sixty three, 0:10:36.720 --> 0:10:40.680 children began marching from Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to 0:10:40.720 --> 0:10:44.000 City Hall as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:49.440 Children's Crusade. That first day, hundreds were arrested. When even 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:53.040 more gathered to march on May third, Birmingham Commissioner of 0:10:53.080 --> 0:10:57.720 Public Safety Bull Connor used high pressure fire hoses, police 0:10:57.760 --> 0:11:01.880 dogs and clubs to turn them back. This was televised, 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.679 and although the march itself was controversial because it put 0:11:04.760 --> 0:11:08.640 children in danger, it propelled the movement into the national spotlight. 0:11:10.280 --> 0:11:13.520 The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed just before the 0:11:13.520 --> 0:11:16.800 start of Sunday school on September fifteenth, nineteen sixty three, 0:11:17.280 --> 0:11:21.240 killing Addie May Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and Carol 0:11:21.320 --> 0:11:26.240 Robertson ages eleven to fourteen. A week before the bombing, 0:11:26.280 --> 0:11:28.559 George Wallace had told The New York Times that there 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:32.120 needed to be quote a few first class funerals, so 0:11:32.160 --> 0:11:35.480 civil rights activists accused him of creating the climate that 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:38.960 led to the bombing. Doctor Martin Luther King Junior wired 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:41.400 him to say, quote, the blood of four little children 0:11:41.520 --> 0:11:45.080 is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have 0:11:45.160 --> 0:11:49.199 created in Birmingham and Alabama, the atmosphere that has induced 0:11:49.360 --> 0:11:54.640 continued violence and now murder. In nineteen sixty three, two 0:11:54.720 --> 0:11:58.840 black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, tried to enroll 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:02.079 in the University of allah Obama at Tuscaloosa, which was 0:12:02.120 --> 0:12:05.040 still segregated, in spite of the fact that nine years 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:09.760 had passed since the Supreme Court found school segregation unconstitutional 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.160 in Brown versus Board of Education. It was also in 0:12:13.200 --> 0:12:16.600 spite of the attempt of one other black student, Authorine Lucy, 0:12:16.960 --> 0:12:20.440 who attended classes for three days in nineteen fifty six. 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.360 She was suspended quote for her own safety because white 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.560 students were rioting over her admission, including throwing tomatoes and 0:12:29.640 --> 0:12:33.720 eggs at her. She sued the school, which then used 0:12:33.720 --> 0:12:38.240 that lawsuit as grounds to expel her permanently. When Malone 0:12:38.280 --> 0:12:42.440 and Hood tried to enroll, US District Judge Seaborn Lynn 0:12:42.679 --> 0:12:48.240 forbade Wallace from interfering, but Wallace defied that order. Flanked 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:52.320 by state troopers, he personally blocked the door to Foster Auditorium, 0:12:52.640 --> 0:12:55.680 where they were to register for class, until the National 0:12:55.720 --> 0:12:59.360 Guard arrived later in the day to intervene. This became 0:12:59.760 --> 0:13:02.480 now as the stand in the Schoolhouse door, and it 0:13:02.520 --> 0:13:04.800 was one of the things that prompted President John F. 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:10.360 Kennedy to push for civil rights legislation. Selma, Alabama, was 0:13:10.440 --> 0:13:14.280 also the scene of ongoing nonviolent civil rights protests during 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:17.640 this time, which were repeatedly met with arrests and violence 0:13:17.679 --> 0:13:20.640 on the part of law enforcement. Many of these related 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:24.280 to voting rights. At the time, discriminatory literacy tests, poll 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:27.560 tax poll taxes, and a flat out refusal to register 0:13:27.600 --> 0:13:30.240 black people to vote meant that many black people could not. 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:34.640 These protests included a series of marches to the Selma 0:13:34.679 --> 0:13:38.040 Courthouse to try to register people to vote, and eventually 0:13:38.120 --> 0:13:40.840 to the Selma to Montgomery March, which was a symbolic 0:13:40.920 --> 0:13:44.679 march to the States Capitol following activist Jimmy Lee Jackson 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:47.800 being shot and killed by a state trooper during a march. 0:13:48.600 --> 0:13:51.800 Jackson was one of several civil rights activists killed in 0:13:51.880 --> 0:13:56.880 Alabama during Wallace's administration. Wallace had insisted that this march 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.760 would not take place, saying, quote such action will not 0:13:59.760 --> 0:14:02.160 be allowed on the part of any other group of 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:05.240 citizens or non citizens of the State of Alabama, and 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:07.959 will not be allowed in this instance the government must 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.920 proceed in an orderly manner, and lawful and law abiding 0:14:10.920 --> 0:14:13.560 citizens must transact to their business with the government. In 0:14:13.600 --> 0:14:16.320 such a manner, there will be no march between Selma, 0:14:16.360 --> 0:14:20.000 Alabama and Montgomery. And I have so instructed the Department 0:14:20.040 --> 0:14:22.680 of Public Safety. On what came to be known as 0:14:22.760 --> 0:14:26.880 Bloody Sunday, on March seventh, nineteen sixty five, several hundred 0:14:26.920 --> 0:14:30.760 marchers to Selma tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. 0:14:31.400 --> 0:14:34.840 Under Wallace's orders to stop the march, State troopers and 0:14:34.880 --> 0:14:37.880 a posse assembled by Dallas County share of Jim Clark 0:14:38.360 --> 0:14:43.280 attacked the marchers and brutally beat them. Wallace would later say, quote, 0:14:43.360 --> 0:14:46.120 it was something that happened that enraged me because I 0:14:46.120 --> 0:14:48.760 didn't intend for it to happen that way. But I 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:51.400 didn't want them to get beyond that point where there 0:14:51.440 --> 0:14:55.520 was some people that told me there might be some violence. So, 0:14:55.640 --> 0:15:00.200 in other words, to prevent the marchers from getting to 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:04.240 somewhere where people were waiting to hurt them, the police 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:07.760 hurt them. The Selma to Montgomery march would be turned 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.720 away at the bridge a second time before US District 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.240 Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered that the marchers be allowed 0:15:14.240 --> 0:15:18.960 to exercise their constitutional rights. Wallace said that Alabama did 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.280 not have the resources to protect them, and President Lyndon 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:26.560 Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard and sent military police 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.480 and army troops to act as an escort. These Selma 0:15:30.520 --> 0:15:34.320 to Montgomery marches raised national awareness of voting rights issues 0:15:34.320 --> 0:15:37.720 and contributed directly to President Lyndon Johnson's push for the 0:15:37.760 --> 0:15:42.000 Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. This act banned 0:15:42.080 --> 0:15:44.400 most of the strategies that had been used to keep 0:15:44.440 --> 0:15:47.760 black people from voting. However, in twenty twelve, the Supreme 0:15:47.800 --> 0:15:51.160 Court struck down one of its provisions, which had required 0:15:51.280 --> 0:15:55.160 states that had previously used discriminatory election laws to get 0:15:55.160 --> 0:15:59.640 federal approval before changing their election laws. As a result, 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:03.440 several states implemented election laws that the federal government had 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:10.000 previously denied as discriminatory. So we're going to back up 0:16:10.120 --> 0:16:12.960 just a little bit, because in nineteen sixty four, Wallace 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.360 had actually made his first run at the White House, 0:16:15.680 --> 0:16:19.040 getting his name on the ballot in three states, and 0:16:19.080 --> 0:16:22.400 he didn't pursue the race aggressively, in part because Republican 0:16:22.440 --> 0:16:26.080 candidate Barry Goldwater publicly denounced the Civil Rights Act of 0:16:26.160 --> 0:16:31.000 nineteen sixty four, which was basically Wallace's whole platform. Propelled 0:16:31.080 --> 0:16:34.520 by Goldwater's ultimate loss in the race, Wallace decided to 0:16:34.560 --> 0:16:37.600 make a bigger effort in nineteen sixty eight, but there 0:16:37.640 --> 0:16:41.000 was a problem. He'd have far more support in doing 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:44.160 so if he was still governor, but the Alabama constitution 0:16:44.400 --> 0:16:48.880 did not allow governors to serve consecutive terms. First, he 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:51.840 tried to get the state legislature to amend the constitution 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.560 so that he could run again, but that failed, so 0:16:54.720 --> 0:16:57.520 instead of admitting defeat, he put his wife ler Lean 0:16:57.640 --> 0:16:59.960 on the ballot with the intent of basically running things 0:17:00.160 --> 0:17:02.920 from behind the scenes. He would basically still have a 0:17:02.920 --> 0:17:05.480 lot of the perks that came along with being governor 0:17:05.520 --> 0:17:07.560 that he could use as a springboard to run for 0:17:07.640 --> 0:17:13.600 president again with his wife actually being the one in office. However, 0:17:14.400 --> 0:17:19.320 leer Ling had cancer during the Cesarean delivery of their daughter, 0:17:19.440 --> 0:17:23.080 Janie Lee in nineteen sixty one. Doctors had found a 0:17:23.119 --> 0:17:27.120 suspicious mass in her uterus, and as was common practice 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:29.960 at the time, the doctors told George but not learn Lean, 0:17:30.080 --> 0:17:32.800 and they left it up to him whether she should 0:17:32.800 --> 0:17:37.320 be informed, and George kept this information from her, saying 0:17:37.359 --> 0:17:41.440 that he didn't want to upset her. So four years later, 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.840 in nineteen sixty five, when she went to a gynecologist 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:49.400 because she was having unusual bleeding, she was completely shocked 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:53.680 to find that she had a malignant tumor. In spite 0:17:53.720 --> 0:17:56.600 of her complete lack of interest in politics, and in 0:17:56.680 --> 0:17:58.920 spite of the fact that she had just undergone a 0:17:59.000 --> 0:18:03.320 hysterectomy and radiation treatments which were described to the public 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:08.280 as female surgery, Laureline agreed to run as her husband's 0:18:08.440 --> 0:18:11.560 stand in. She ran on a campaign of upholding all 0:18:11.600 --> 0:18:14.640 of her husband's policies and his being her number one assistant. 0:18:15.280 --> 0:18:17.359 In the early days on the campaign trail, she would 0:18:17.359 --> 0:18:21.160 start off by giving a brief prepared remarks before introducing 0:18:21.160 --> 0:18:23.800 her husband, who would then basically take it over from there. 0:18:24.520 --> 0:18:27.960 As she gradually became more confident in her speaking skills, 0:18:28.000 --> 0:18:31.480 she did start to campaign on her own, and in 0:18:31.520 --> 0:18:34.920 the end she beat ten male candidates, some of them 0:18:35.000 --> 0:18:38.520 former governors, in the primary. She then won the election 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:42.000 by a landslide, becoming the first woman governor elected in 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:45.399 the Deep South. When her term as governor began. She 0:18:45.520 --> 0:18:48.000 and George had offices across the hall from each other, 0:18:48.160 --> 0:18:51.639 and staff called them Governor Lerlein and Governor George. She 0:18:51.720 --> 0:18:54.760 did push for some initiatives of her own, including legislation 0:18:54.840 --> 0:18:58.080 related to state parks and to mental health. That latter 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.280 following a tour she made of two state institutions whose 0:19:01.280 --> 0:19:04.760 conditions really horrified her. During her time in office, the 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:09.119 Alabama legislature also ratified an amendment that would allow governors 0:19:09.160 --> 0:19:14.200 to serve consecutive terms, and as promised, she also upheld 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:18.639 her husband's promise to fight integration. In March of nineteen 0:19:18.680 --> 0:19:22.280 sixty seven, a federal court ordered that Alabama's schools must 0:19:22.280 --> 0:19:25.840 be desegregated in lee versus Macon County Board of Education. 0:19:27.040 --> 0:19:30.600 This followed a lengthy series of maneuverings that George Wallace 0:19:30.640 --> 0:19:33.600 had overseen during his first term as governor to try 0:19:33.600 --> 0:19:37.720 to stop integration. This includes delaying the start of school, 0:19:38.320 --> 0:19:41.639 stationing troops at schools to prevent black students from entering, 0:19:42.200 --> 0:19:45.560 and transferring all of the white students out of Tuskegee 0:19:45.600 --> 0:19:49.800 High School after black students were enrolled there. Following the 0:19:49.840 --> 0:19:53.639 court order that came down during Luerline Wallace's time in office. 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:57.320 She delivered an address that stridently denounced this ruling as 0:19:57.359 --> 0:20:00.920 infringing on the state's rights, vowing to US state troopers 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:04.479 to prevent integration if necessary. This case then went on 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:07.440 to the Supreme Court and Wallace versus the United States, 0:20:07.560 --> 0:20:11.439 and the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling, at 0:20:11.440 --> 0:20:17.280 which point some progress was actually made in desegregating the schools. Lurline. 0:20:17.359 --> 0:20:20.359 Wallace was not able, however, to keep up her duties 0:20:20.359 --> 0:20:24.119 as governor for long. In July of nineteen sixty seven, 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:28.240 doctors found another tumor in her abdomen, followed by numerous 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:32.880 other tumors the following January. She underwent tests and treatment 0:20:32.960 --> 0:20:35.840 at the MD Anderson Clinic in Houston, Texas. Because there 0:20:35.920 --> 0:20:39.400 wasn't a cancer center in Alabama because she was governor, 0:20:39.480 --> 0:20:41.919 she had to travel back to Alabama during her treatment 0:20:41.920 --> 0:20:45.080 at least once every twenty days. During a lot of 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.520 this time, she was in severe pain and she underwent 0:20:47.600 --> 0:20:51.760 multiple operations. This went on until May of nineteen sixty eight, 0:20:51.840 --> 0:20:55.440 when she returned home to her family to die, and 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:58.000 she died on May seventh, nineteen sixty eight, at the 0:20:58.040 --> 0:21:02.560 age of forty one, after just six teen months in office. 0:21:02.600 --> 0:21:05.520 Her body lay in state in an open casket, something 0:21:05.520 --> 0:21:08.119 that her husband ordered in defiance of her wishes, at 0:21:08.119 --> 0:21:11.239 the Capitol Rotunda. This is the first time anyone had 0:21:11.320 --> 0:21:13.560 laid in state there since the eighteen eighty nine death 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:16.200 of Jefferson Davis, who had been president of the Confederate 0:21:16.200 --> 0:21:19.439 States of America. Her death was met with a huge 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:23.320 outpouring of public grief, with public schools, state offices, and 0:21:23.359 --> 0:21:26.080 some businesses closing the day of the funeral, and more 0:21:26.119 --> 0:21:29.080 than twenty five thousand people going to the capital to 0:21:29.080 --> 0:21:33.879 pay their respects. And we're going to next get into 0:21:33.920 --> 0:21:36.560 Wallace's later career, but first we're going to pause for 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:49.560 a moment and have a word from one of our sponsors. 0:21:50.680 --> 0:21:53.560 After ler Leine Wallace's death in nineteen sixty eight, she 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:57.240 was succeeded by the Lieutenant Governor, Albert Brewer, who raised 0:21:57.240 --> 0:21:59.920 funds for a cancer center at the University of Alabama 0:22:00.119 --> 0:22:03.239 in her memory. And that same year, as he had 0:22:03.280 --> 0:22:06.320 been planning to do, George Wallace ran for president again 0:22:06.400 --> 0:22:10.639 under the American Independent Party. Wallace got onto the ballot 0:22:10.680 --> 0:22:13.399 in every state, and he won five of them. Earning 0:22:13.400 --> 0:22:16.639 more than ten percent of the popular vote, although he 0:22:16.760 --> 0:22:20.480 dropped some of his most explicit racist language, his campaign 0:22:20.720 --> 0:22:25.199 decried the influence of things like liberals, communists, and the 0:22:25.240 --> 0:22:29.000 interference of the federal government, leaning on more coded language 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:31.639 to reach out to white voters who were unhappy with 0:22:31.680 --> 0:22:35.480 the progress of integration and increasing civil rights for black people. 0:22:36.560 --> 0:22:39.600 He ran for governor again in nineteen seventy, using much 0:22:39.640 --> 0:22:42.320 of the same anti integration platform that had won him 0:22:42.359 --> 0:22:45.240 the election in nineteen sixty two, and at times the 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.679 nineteen seventy campaign was even more explicit, but once he 0:22:48.760 --> 0:22:52.399 was actually in office, he softened his rhetoric. Following the 0:22:52.440 --> 0:22:54.960 passage of the Voting Rights Act and the long work 0:22:55.040 --> 0:22:58.520 of the Civil rights movement, many of Alabama's black population, 0:22:58.720 --> 0:23:01.400 who made up more than a quarter of the state's population, 0:23:01.520 --> 0:23:05.000 were now registered to vote. Whilas realized that he would 0:23:05.080 --> 0:23:08.400 undermine his efforts if he continued to explicitly attack such 0:23:08.400 --> 0:23:12.920 a large group of the state's voters. In nineteen seventy two, 0:23:13.280 --> 0:23:16.600 Whillas once again ran for president, this time as a 0:23:16.640 --> 0:23:21.440 Democrat and once again primarily reaching out to disaffected white voters, 0:23:21.560 --> 0:23:26.280 decrying forced bussing to integrate schools and welfare loafing and 0:23:26.560 --> 0:23:30.160 advocating quote a return to law and order in an 0:23:30.280 --> 0:23:35.160 end to foreign aid programs, especially to communist countries. After 0:23:35.200 --> 0:23:37.800 winning the state of Florida, his campaign looked like it 0:23:37.880 --> 0:23:39.760 was set to be a lot more successful than he 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.439 had been in nineteen sixty eight. But then, while he 0:23:42.480 --> 0:23:46.080 was campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, he was shot by Arthur 0:23:46.160 --> 0:23:49.400 Bremer while working the crowd at a rally. Bremer had 0:23:49.440 --> 0:23:53.400 previously planned to assassinate Richard Nixon, but had ultimately never 0:23:53.440 --> 0:23:58.560 opened fire. While still recuperating, Wallace won the primaries in 0:23:58.600 --> 0:24:02.800 Maryland in Michigan as well well. However, this injury left 0:24:02.800 --> 0:24:05.560 Wallace paralyzed from the waist down, and since he was 0:24:05.600 --> 0:24:09.320 hospitalized for months, he was unable to continue his campaign. 0:24:10.280 --> 0:24:12.720 He would go on to maintain that he would have 0:24:12.800 --> 0:24:16.439 won that presidency had he not been shot. Although his 0:24:16.600 --> 0:24:18.920 injury put him out of the presidential race, he ran 0:24:18.960 --> 0:24:21.840 for Alabama governor again in nineteen seventy four, since that 0:24:21.960 --> 0:24:24.920 amendment to the state constitution that had come through during 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.720 Lerlin Wallace's administration once again allowed him to do so. 0:24:29.200 --> 0:24:33.119 He won for his third term and his second consecutive term, 0:24:33.680 --> 0:24:36.200 and he once again spent part of his term as governor. 0:24:36.359 --> 0:24:40.320 Again running for president in nineteen seventy six. He won 0:24:40.359 --> 0:24:44.200