Speaker 1: Happy Saturday. This week, when we talked about the Camden
Speaker 1: twenty eight we mentioned that there was a George Wallace
Speaker 1: campaign rally during that trial. Today, George Wallace is better
Speaker 1: known for his time as governor of Alabama, but at
Speaker 1: the time he was running for president. Our episode on
Speaker 1: George Wallace originally came out on November twenty ninth, twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: and it is Today's Saturday Classic. Welcome to Stuff You
Speaker 1: Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio. Hello, and
Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. I'm Tray CV Wilson, and I'm
Speaker 1: Holly Frye. Over the past few years, Holly, you and
Speaker 1: I have talked about a number of prominent figures and
Speaker 1: moments in the civil rights movement. That is correct. So
Speaker 1: we've talked about people like Rosa Parks and bired Rustin,
Speaker 1: and we've talked about Supreme Court decisions like Brown versus
Speaker 1: Board and Loving versus for Time, organizations like the Brotherhood
Speaker 1: of Sleeping Car Porters. But other than talking sort of
Speaker 1: obliquely about the laws and practices and social systems that
Speaker 1: have enforced segregation and discrimination in the United States, as
Speaker 1: well as talking about some specific incidents of racist violence
Speaker 1: like the destruction of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: We've never really talked a lot about the opposition to
Speaker 1: that movement, So today we are talking about one of
Speaker 1: the most prominent voices against the civil rights movement and
Speaker 1: its objectives, Alabama Governor George Wallace, who spent multiple campaigns
Speaker 1: to both governor and president on an explicitly pro segregation platform.
Speaker 1: In his nineteen sixty three inaugural addresses Governor of Alabama,
Speaker 1: he famously proclaimed segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. So
Speaker 1: we're going to be talking about violent retaliation against the
Speaker 1: civil rights civil rights movement that happened during his terms
Speaker 1: in office. And we're also going to be talking a
Speaker 1: lot about his first wife, Lurline. He was married other times,
Speaker 1: so we're not really getting into that at all, but
Speaker 1: are going to talk about Lurline, whose own story is
Speaker 1: both tied directly to her husband's political career and includes
Speaker 1: a pretty disturbing account of medical neglect. So George Corley Wallace,
Speaker 1: Junior was born on August twenty fifth of nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: in southeastern Alabama, where his father was a farmer. His
Speaker 1: political career started very early, at the age of fifteen,
Speaker 1: when he served as a government page at the Alabama
Speaker 1: State Capitol and made up his mind to return one
Speaker 1: day as governor. In his high school years, he was
Speaker 1: also a boxer, winning two state titles in that sport.
Speaker 1: Wallace studied at the University of Alabama, paying his tuition
Speaker 1: by waiting tables and boxing. He graduated in nineteen thirty
Speaker 1: seven and then finished his law degree in nineteen forty two.
Speaker 1: That same year, at the age of twenty four, he
Speaker 1: met Lurline Burns, who was then sixteen, while she was
Speaker 1: working at a five and dime in Tuscaloosa. She had
Speaker 1: graduated from high school early, and she was working there
Speaker 1: to try to save up money to go to nursing school.
Speaker 1: George was already very interested in politics, something that didn't
Speaker 1: really interest Lurline at all, but they quickly became inseparable.
Speaker 1: Not long after they met, Wallace was inducted into the
Speaker 1: US Army Air Corps to serve in World War Two.
Speaker 1: He and Lerleine got married on May twenty first of
Speaker 1: nineteen forty three, while he was on leave after having
Speaker 1: contracted meningitis. They spent their honeymoon in a friend's guest room.
Speaker 1: Although George spent a lot of his time out talking politics.
Speaker 1: While he was still stateside, Leerleine traveled back and forth
Speaker 1: between her parents' home in Alabama and the air bases
Speaker 1: where he was stationed. This included a trip to New Mexico,
Speaker 1: which she made with their five month old daughter, Bobby Joe,
Speaker 1: only to find that George had not arranged housing for
Speaker 1: them on the base. They wound up needing to stay
Speaker 1: in a converted chicken. Soon a Georgia b stationed in
Speaker 1: the Pacific, where he flew incendiary missions over Japan until
Speaker 1: being medically discharged for severe anxiety in nineteen forty five.
Speaker 1: In nineteen forty six, he started actively pursuing a political career.
Speaker 1: He became assistant to the state attorney General, and in
Speaker 1: nineteen forty seven he was elected to the Alabama State
Speaker 1: Legislature as representative for the first of his two terms.
Speaker 1: During his campaign, Lerlin was the family's sole breadwinner. He
Speaker 1: was elected a judge for the Third Judicial Court in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty three, a position that he retained until nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty eight, and this job came with enough income for
Speaker 1: him to buy a home for the family. Up until
Speaker 1: this point, they had been living in a variety of
Speaker 1: rented rooms and garage apartments, and his nickname became Fighting
Speaker 1: Little Judge, both for his toughness from the bench and
Speaker 1: his former time as a boxer while he was in school.
Speaker 1: Over the same time, he and Lerlein had two more children,
Speaker 1: Peggy Sue born in nineteen fifty and George Corley Wallace
Speaker 1: the third known as George Junior, in nineteen fifty one,
Speaker 1: and Lurline was increasingly frustrated by her husband's devotion to politics,
Speaker 1: often to the neglect of his family. At this point
Speaker 1: in his career, people were calling George Wallace quote a
Speaker 1: dangerous liberal. He was part of charismatic Governor Big Jim
Speaker 1: Fulsom's re election campaign in nineteen fifty three. Fulsom was
Speaker 1: also Wallace's mentor, and in later years would be described
Speaker 1: as being way ahead of his time in terms of
Speaker 1: social progress and racial equality. Fulsom's positions during his career
Speaker 1: included things like voting rights for black people, an end
Speaker 1: to prison labor, better schools, funding for roads to make
Speaker 1: it easier for farmers to get their crops to market,
Speaker 1: and more government positions for women. Much of this, of course,
Speaker 1: was an uphill battle and ultimately failed. A lot of
Speaker 1: Wallace's policies in the earlier part of his career mostly
Speaker 1: mirrored Fulsom's. During his two terms in the state legislature,
Speaker 1: he drafted legislation to promote vocational schools and attract manufacturing
Speaker 1: jobs to Alabama. In nineteen forty eight, when pro segregation
Speaker 1: Dixiecrats walked out of the Democratic National Convention, both Wallace
Speaker 1: and Fulsom stayed put. While in office in the State
Speaker 1: House of Representatives, Wallace sponsored a bill that taxed alcohol
Speaker 1: to fund trade schools. The Wallace Act, which was signed
Speaker 1: in nineteen fifty one and was half of what became
Speaker 1: known as the Wallace Cater Acts, allowed municipalities to sell
Speaker 1: bonds in order to fund industrial development. This was part
Speaker 1: of an effort to bring jobs to Alabama and diversify
Speaker 1: the state's economy. Critics called the Wallace Cater Acts socialistic.
Speaker 1: Another criticism was that most of the industries that moved
Speaker 1: into Alabama through the act's incentive were low wage, non
Speaker 1: union work that paid lower than the national average. In
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty eight, Wallace embarked in his first campaign to
Speaker 1: be the governor of Alabama. He continued on with the
Speaker 1: kind of populist policies and relatively moderate positions on racial
Speaker 1: equality that he had up until this point. Obviously that
Speaker 1: is not his entire platform, but you know, he was
Speaker 1: sort of continuing similar similarly to what his mentor had
Speaker 1: and Big Jim Folsom had been elected on a similar
Speaker 1: platform in both nineteen forty six and nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: But Wallace's opponent in the Democratic primary was Attorney General
Speaker 1: John Patterson. Patterson was running on a pro segregation platform
Speaker 1: supported by the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace, on the other hand,
Speaker 1: had the support of the National Association for the Advancement
Speaker 1: of Colored People or NAACP. The primary went into a runoff,
Speaker 1: with Patterson beating Wallace and then beating the Republican candidate,
Speaker 1: William Longshore by a landslide. When asked what had gone wrong,
Speaker 1: Wallace reportedly told supporters some version of the following quote,
Speaker 1: which uses a slow that we are not going to
Speaker 1: repeat quote. I got out enwarded by John Patterson. This
Speaker 1: is the first and last time I will be out
Speaker 1: inwarded by another candidate. This quote and variations on it
Speaker 1: have been widely reported, but Wallace would later deny ever,
Speaker 1: saying it Apart from shifting his politics on race completely,
Speaker 1: this loss for governor took a toll on Wallace's personal life. Lerline,
Speaker 1: fed up with his absences and rumors of infidelity and
Speaker 1: a deep depression that he went into following the loss,
Speaker 1: took the children to her parents' house and filed for divorce.
Speaker 1: George begged her to come back, and the two eventually reconciled,
Speaker 1: and their last child, Jamie Lee, named after Robert E. Lee,
Speaker 1: was born. In nineteen sixty one, Wallace returned to his
Speaker 1: position in the circuit court, where he turned his attention
Speaker 1: to blocking federal efforts at civil rights. When the US
Speaker 1: Civil Rights Commission requested that he turn over voting records,
Speaker 1: he refused to do it and was threatened with prison
Speaker 1: for contempt. He wound up turning the records over by
Speaker 1: handing them over to grand Juries to turn in on
Speaker 1: his behalf so he could say that he had not
Speaker 1: personally given the government those records, but he could also
Speaker 1: stay out of jail. In nineteen sixty two, Wallace ran
Speaker 1: for governor again. This time he took a pro segregation
Speaker 1: pro states rights platform, and like John Patterson, got the
Speaker 1: support of the Ku Klux Klan. He won the Democratic
Speaker 1: primary after a runoff, and the Republican Party fielded no
Speaker 1: candidate at all in the election. Even though he was
Speaker 1: running unopposed, he got more than three hundred thousand votes,
Speaker 1: more than any candidate in Alabama history at that time.
Speaker 1: That infamous Segregation Forever inaugural address was co written by
Speaker 1: klansman Asa Carter, who could easily be his own podcast
Speaker 1: subject as he also wrote The Education of Little Tree
Speaker 1: in the rebel outlaw Josie Wales under the pseudonym of
Speaker 1: Forrest Carter. Wallace's first term saw some of the most
Speaker 1: note tentorious incidents of racist violence in the civil rights movement,
Speaker 1: with critics blaming Wallace's rhetoric for stoking the fire and
Speaker 1: we are going to talk about it after a quick
Speaker 1: sponsor break. Although there were certainly incidents of racial violence
Speaker 1: before George Wallace took office in Alabama, and that violence
Speaker 1: was not confined just to Alabama, some of the most
Speaker 1: infamous incidents in the United States civil rights movement happened
Speaker 1: there during his first term. On May second, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: children began marching from Birmingham's Sixteenth Street Baptist Church to
Speaker 1: City Hall as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's
Speaker 1: Children's Crusade. That first day, hundreds were arrested. When even
Speaker 1: more gathered to march on May third, Birmingham Commissioner of
Speaker 1: Public Safety Bull Connor used high pressure fire hoses, police
Speaker 1: dogs and clubs to turn them back. This was televised,
Speaker 1: and although the march itself was controversial because it put
Speaker 1: children in danger, it propelled the movement into the national spotlight.
Speaker 1: The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed just before the
Speaker 1: start of Sunday school on September fifteenth, nineteen sixty three,
Speaker 1: killing Addie May Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and Carol
Speaker 1: Robertson ages eleven to fourteen. A week before the bombing,
Speaker 1: George Wallace had told The New York Times that there
Speaker 1: needed to be quote a few first class funerals, so
Speaker 1: civil rights activists accused him of creating the climate that
Speaker 1: led to the bombing. Doctor Martin Luther King Junior wired
Speaker 1: him to say, quote, the blood of four little children
Speaker 1: is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have
Speaker 1: created in Birmingham and Alabama, the atmosphere that has induced
Speaker 1: continued violence and now murder. In nineteen sixty three, two
Speaker 1: black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, tried to enroll
Speaker 1: in the University of allah Obama at Tuscaloosa, which was
Speaker 1: still segregated, in spite of the fact that nine years
Speaker 1: had passed since the Supreme Court found school segregation unconstitutional
Speaker 1: in Brown versus Board of Education. It was also in
Speaker 1: spite of the attempt of one other black student, Authorine Lucy,
Speaker 1: who attended classes for three days in nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: She was suspended quote for her own safety because white
Speaker 1: students were rioting over her admission, including throwing tomatoes and
Speaker 1: eggs at her. She sued the school, which then used
Speaker 1: that lawsuit as grounds to expel her permanently. When Malone
Speaker 1: and Hood tried to enroll, US District Judge Seaborn Lynn
Speaker 1: forbade Wallace from interfering, but Wallace defied that order. Flanked
Speaker 1: by state troopers, he personally blocked the door to Foster Auditorium,
Speaker 1: where they were to register for class, until the National
Speaker 1: Guard arrived later in the day to intervene. This became
Speaker 1: now as the stand in the Schoolhouse door, and it
Speaker 1: was one of the things that prompted President John F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy to push for civil rights legislation. Selma, Alabama, was
Speaker 1: also the scene of ongoing nonviolent civil rights protests during
Speaker 1: this time, which were repeatedly met with arrests and violence
Speaker 1: on the part of law enforcement. Many of these related
Speaker 1: to voting rights. At the time, discriminatory literacy tests, poll
Speaker 1: tax poll taxes, and a flat out refusal to register
Speaker 1: black people to vote meant that many black people could not.
Speaker 1: These protests included a series of marches to the Selma
Speaker 1: Courthouse to try to register people to vote, and eventually
Speaker 1: to the Selma to Montgomery March, which was a symbolic
Speaker 1: march to the States Capitol following activist Jimmy Lee Jackson
Speaker 1: being shot and killed by a state trooper during a march.
Speaker 1: Jackson was one of several civil rights activists killed in
Speaker 1: Alabama during Wallace's administration. Wallace had insisted that this march
Speaker 1: would not take place, saying, quote such action will not
Speaker 1: be allowed on the part of any other group of
Speaker 1: citizens or non citizens of the State of Alabama, and
Speaker 1: will not be allowed in this instance the government must
Speaker 1: proceed in an orderly manner, and lawful and law abiding
Speaker 1: citizens must transact to their business with the government. In
Speaker 1: such a manner, there will be no march between Selma,
Speaker 1: Alabama and Montgomery. And I have so instructed the Department
Speaker 1: of Public Safety. On what came to be known as
Speaker 1: Bloody Sunday, on March seventh, nineteen sixty five, several hundred
Speaker 1: marchers to Selma tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Speaker 1: Under Wallace's orders to stop the march, State troopers and
Speaker 1: a posse assembled by Dallas County share of Jim Clark
Speaker 1: attacked the marchers and brutally beat them. Wallace would later say, quote,
Speaker 1: it was something that happened that enraged me because I
Speaker 1: didn't intend for it to happen that way. But I
Speaker 1: didn't want them to get beyond that point where there
Speaker 1: was some people that told me there might be some violence. So,
Speaker 1: in other words, to prevent the marchers from getting to
Speaker 1: somewhere where people were waiting to hurt them, the police
Speaker 1: hurt them. The Selma to Montgomery march would be turned
Speaker 1: away at the bridge a second time before US District
Speaker 1: Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered that the marchers be allowed
Speaker 1: to exercise their constitutional rights. Wallace said that Alabama did
Speaker 1: not have the resources to protect them, and President Lyndon
Speaker 1: Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard and sent military police
Speaker 1: and army troops to act as an escort. These Selma
Speaker 1: to Montgomery marches raised national awareness of voting rights issues
Speaker 1: and contributed directly to President Lyndon Johnson's push for the
Speaker 1: Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. This act banned
Speaker 1: most of the strategies that had been used to keep
Speaker 1: black people from voting. However, in twenty twelve, the Supreme
Speaker 1: Court struck down one of its provisions, which had required
Speaker 1: states that had previously used discriminatory election laws to get
Speaker 1: federal approval before changing their election laws. As a result,
Speaker 1: several states implemented election laws that the federal government had
Speaker 1: previously denied as discriminatory. So we're going to back up
Speaker 1: just a little bit, because in nineteen sixty four, Wallace
Speaker 1: had actually made his first run at the White House,
Speaker 1: getting his name on the ballot in three states, and
Speaker 1: he didn't pursue the race aggressively, in part because Republican
Speaker 1: candidate Barry Goldwater publicly denounced the Civil Rights Act of
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty four, which was basically Wallace's whole platform. Propelled
Speaker 1: by Goldwater's ultimate loss in the race, Wallace decided to
Speaker 1: make a bigger effort in nineteen sixty eight, but there
Speaker 1: was a problem. He'd have far more support in doing
Speaker 1: so if he was still governor, but the Alabama constitution
Speaker 1: did not allow governors to serve consecutive terms. First, he
Speaker 1: tried to get the state legislature to amend the constitution
Speaker 1: so that he could run again, but that failed, so
Speaker 1: instead of admitting defeat, he put his wife ler Lean
Speaker 1: on the ballot with the intent of basically running things
Speaker 1: from behind the scenes. He would basically still have a
Speaker 1: lot of the perks that came along with being governor
Speaker 1: that he could use as a springboard to run for
Speaker 1: president again with his wife actually being the one in office. However,
Speaker 1: leer Ling had cancer during the Cesarean delivery of their daughter,
Speaker 1: Janie Lee in nineteen sixty one. Doctors had found a
Speaker 1: suspicious mass in her uterus, and as was common practice
Speaker 1: at the time, the doctors told George but not learn Lean,
Speaker 1: and they left it up to him whether she should
Speaker 1: be informed, and George kept this information from her, saying
Speaker 1: that he didn't want to upset her. So four years later,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty five, when she went to a gynecologist
Speaker 1: because she was having unusual bleeding, she was completely shocked
Speaker 1: to find that she had a malignant tumor. In spite
Speaker 1: of her complete lack of interest in politics, and in
Speaker 1: spite of the fact that she had just undergone a
Speaker 1: hysterectomy and radiation treatments which were described to the public
Speaker 1: as female surgery, Laureline agreed to run as her husband's
Speaker 1: stand in. She ran on a campaign of upholding all
Speaker 1: of her husband's policies and his being her number one assistant.
Speaker 1: In the early days on the campaign trail, she would
Speaker 1: start off by giving a brief prepared remarks before introducing
Speaker 1: her husband, who would then basically take it over from there.
Speaker 1: As she gradually became more confident in her speaking skills,
Speaker 1: she did start to campaign on her own, and in
Speaker 1: the end she beat ten male candidates, some of them
Speaker 1: former governors, in the primary. She then won the election
Speaker 1: by a landslide, becoming the first woman governor elected in
Speaker 1: the Deep South. When her term as governor began. She
Speaker 1: and George had offices across the hall from each other,
Speaker 1: and staff called them Governor Lerlein and Governor George. She
Speaker 1: did push for some initiatives of her own, including legislation
Speaker 1: related to state parks and to mental health. That latter
Speaker 1: following a tour she made of two state institutions whose
Speaker 1: conditions really horrified her. During her time in office, the
Speaker 1: Alabama legislature also ratified an amendment that would allow governors
Speaker 1: to serve consecutive terms, and as promised, she also upheld
Speaker 1: her husband's promise to fight integration. In March of nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty seven, a federal court ordered that Alabama's schools must
Speaker 1: be desegregated in lee versus Macon County Board of Education.
Speaker 1: This followed a lengthy series of maneuverings that George Wallace
Speaker 1: had overseen during his first term as governor to try
Speaker 1: to stop integration. This includes delaying the start of school,
Speaker 1: stationing troops at schools to prevent black students from entering,
Speaker 1: and transferring all of the white students out of Tuskegee
Speaker 1: High School after black students were enrolled there. Following the
Speaker 1: court order that came down during Luerline Wallace's time in office.
Speaker 1: She delivered an address that stridently denounced this ruling as
Speaker 1: infringing on the state's rights, vowing to US state troopers
Speaker 1: to prevent integration if necessary. This case then went on
Speaker 1: to the Supreme Court and Wallace versus the United States,
Speaker 1: and the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling, at
Speaker 1: which point some progress was actually made in desegregating the schools. Lurline.
Speaker 1: Wallace was not able, however, to keep up her duties
Speaker 1: as governor for long. In July of nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: doctors found another tumor in her abdomen, followed by numerous
Speaker 1: other tumors the following January. She underwent tests and treatment
Speaker 1: at the MD Anderson Clinic in Houston, Texas. Because there
Speaker 1: wasn't a cancer center in Alabama because she was governor,
Speaker 1: she had to travel back to Alabama during her treatment
Speaker 1: at least once every twenty days. During a lot of
Speaker 1: this time, she was in severe pain and she underwent
Speaker 1: multiple operations. This went on until May of nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: when she returned home to her family to die, and
Speaker 1: she died on May seventh, nineteen sixty eight, at the
Speaker 1: age of forty one, after just six teen months in office.
Speaker 1: Her body lay in state in an open casket, something
Speaker 1: that her husband ordered in defiance of her wishes, at
Speaker 1: the Capitol Rotunda. This is the first time anyone had
Speaker 1: laid in state there since the eighteen eighty nine death
Speaker 1: of Jefferson Davis, who had been president of the Confederate
Speaker 1: States of America. Her death was met with a huge
Speaker 1: outpouring of public grief, with public schools, state offices, and
Speaker 1: some businesses closing the day of the funeral, and more
Speaker 1: than twenty five thousand people going to the capital to
Speaker 1: pay their respects. And we're going to next get into
Speaker 1: Wallace's later career, but first we're going to pause for
Speaker 1: a moment and have a word from one of our sponsors.
Speaker 1: After ler Leine Wallace's death in nineteen sixty eight, she
Speaker 1: was succeeded by the Lieutenant Governor, Albert Brewer, who raised
Speaker 1: funds for a cancer center at the University of Alabama
Speaker 1: in her memory. And that same year, as he had
Speaker 1: been planning to do, George Wallace ran for president again
Speaker 1: under the American Independent Party. Wallace got onto the ballot
Speaker 1: in every state, and he won five of them. Earning
Speaker 1: more than ten percent of the popular vote, although he
Speaker 1: dropped some of his most explicit racist language, his campaign
Speaker 1: decried the influence of things like liberals, communists, and the
Speaker 1: interference of the federal government, leaning on more coded language
Speaker 1: to reach out to white voters who were unhappy with
Speaker 1: the progress of integration and increasing civil rights for black people.
Speaker 1: He ran for governor again in nineteen seventy, using much
Speaker 1: of the same anti integration platform that had won him
Speaker 1: the election in nineteen sixty two, and at times the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy campaign was even more explicit, but once he
Speaker 1: was actually in office, he softened his rhetoric. Following the
Speaker 1: passage of the Voting Rights Act and the long work
Speaker 1: of the Civil rights movement, many of Alabama's black population,
Speaker 1: who made up more than a quarter of the state's population,
Speaker 1: were now registered to vote. Whilas realized that he would
Speaker 1: undermine his efforts if he continued to explicitly attack such
Speaker 1: a large group of the state's voters. In nineteen seventy two,
Speaker 1: Whillas once again ran for president, this time as a
Speaker 1: Democrat and once again primarily reaching out to disaffected white voters,
Speaker 1: decrying forced bussing to integrate schools and welfare loafing and
Speaker 1: advocating quote a return to law and order in an
Speaker 1: end to foreign aid programs, especially to communist countries. After
Speaker 1: winning the state of Florida, his campaign looked like it
Speaker 1: was set to be a lot more successful than he
Speaker 1: had been in nineteen sixty eight. But then, while he
Speaker 1: was campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, he was shot by Arthur
Speaker 1: Bremer while working the crowd at a rally. Bremer had
Speaker 1: previously planned to assassinate Richard Nixon, but had ultimately never
Speaker 1: opened fire. While still recuperating, Wallace won the primaries in
Speaker 1: Maryland in Michigan as well well. However, this injury left
Speaker 1: Wallace paralyzed from the waist down, and since he was
Speaker 1: hospitalized for months, he was unable to continue his campaign.
Speaker 1: He would go on to maintain that he would have
Speaker 1: won that presidency had he not been shot. Although his
Speaker 1: injury put him out of the presidential race, he ran
Speaker 1: for Alabama governor again in nineteen seventy four, since that
Speaker 1: amendment to the state constitution that had come through during
Speaker 1: Lerlin Wallace's administration once again allowed him to do so.
Speaker 1: He won for his third term and his second consecutive term,
Speaker 1: and he once again spent part of his term as governor.
Speaker 1: Again running for president in nineteen seventy six. He won
Speaker 1: the states of Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi in the primary,
Speaker 1: ultimately losing the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter, who he
Speaker 1: endorsed after dropping out of the race, and numerous biographers
Speaker 1: describe him as being a lot more interested in campaigning
Speaker 1: than in governing. It sure sounds that way. He spends
Speaker 1: a lot of of his time as governor on the
Speaker 1: presidential campaign trail. It's true story. So after his gunshot injury,
Speaker 1: and in light of the changing racial politics of the
Speaker 1: United States in his later life, George Wallace started reaching
Speaker 1: out to the black community and trying to make amends.
Speaker 1: Historians and biographers really disagree on whether this attempt was
Speaker 1: motivated by a genuine change in views or whether it
Speaker 1: was political savvy and a desire not to be remembered
Speaker 1: on the wrong side of history. He began to insist
Speaker 1: that his hard line segregationist stance was based on the
Speaker 1: Constitution and a misreading of the Bible, not on white supremacy.
Speaker 1: This does not, however, quite sync with some of the
Speaker 1: quotes that are attributed to him, such as quote the
Speaker 1: colored are fine in their place, but they're just like children,
Speaker 1: and it's not something that's going to change. It's written
Speaker 1: in stone. He also met with several of the still
Speaker 1: living civil rights leaders who he had actively worked against,
Speaker 1: including the Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy, the Reverend Jesse Jackson,
Speaker 1: and Representative Lewis. Lewis had been seriously beaten on Bloody
Speaker 1: Sunday during the first Selma to Montgomery March. While presenting
Speaker 1: her with the Lurelin B. Wallace Award for Courage, he
Speaker 1: also praised Vivian Vivian Malone for her quote, strength, grace,
Speaker 1: and above all courage during the stand in the schoolhouse door.
Speaker 1: In the words of Selma attorney J. L. Chesnutt, quoted
Speaker 1: in the PBS American Experience production George Wallace Set in
Speaker 1: the Woods on Fire, which came out in two thousand, quote,
Speaker 1: I have no problem for giving George Wallace. I will
Speaker 1: not forget George Wallace because we must deal with the
Speaker 1: reality of Wallace. How is it that a demagogue insulting
Speaker 1: twenty million black people daily on the television can rise
Speaker 1: to the heights that Wallace did forgive, yes, forget never.
Speaker 1: George Wallace was elected to his last term as governor
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty two in a campaign that actively sought
Speaker 1: and received votes from the black community. His win made
Speaker 1: him the only person in Alabama history to serve for four terms,
Speaker 1: and we took office in nineteen eighty three. He made
Speaker 1: it a point to appoint black officials to government positions.
Speaker 1: He also became a born again Christian that year. He
Speaker 1: retired from that last term in January of nineteen eighty seven,
Speaker 1: and he died on September thirteenth of nineteen ninety eight
Speaker 1: in Montgomery, Alabama. Regardless of whether Wallace's shifts in racial
Speaker 1: ideology were genuine or just politically expedient, his methods of
Speaker 1: campaigning and his shifting platforms have really had a long
Speaker 1: list lasting influence on American politics. Dan T. Carter, in
Speaker 1: a paper published in the Journal of Southern History in
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six, writes Wallace more than any other political
Speaker 1: figure of the nineteen sixties and early nineteen seventies, since
Speaker 1: the frustrations, the rage of many American voters made commonplace
Speaker 1: a new level of political incibility and intemperate rhetoric and
Speaker 1: focused that anger upon a convenient set of scapegoats. I
Speaker 1: was in nineteen ninety six, so that is George Wallace.
Speaker 1: Someone asked us on Yeah, somebody asked us on Twitter
Speaker 1: one time if we would do a podcast on Bull Connor,
Speaker 1: who was the person who turned the fire hoses on
Speaker 1: the Children's Crusade during their march. Uh. I'm just gonna say,
Speaker 1: after having done this one, I'm not that's gonna be
Speaker 1: way down the leaklist because it's hard. Yeah. Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like
Speaker 1: to send us a note, our email addresses History Podcast
Speaker 1: at iHeartRadio dot com, and you can subscribe to the
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