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George Wallace

 
Who2 Profiles:

George Wallace, State Governor

George Wallace
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  • Born: 25 August 1919
  • Birthplace: Clio, Alabama
  • Died: 13 September 1998 (heart failure)
  • Best Known As: Segregationist governor of the 1960s

George Wallace was one of America's most outspoken supporters of racial segregation in the 1960s. As governor of Alabama he fought integration, once even standing symbolically in the doorway of the University of Alabama to block two black students from enrolling there. (Many considered Wallace the leader of the opposition to Martin Luther King, Jr.) Wallace served four terms as governor of Alabama: 1963-67, 1971-79 (two terms), and 1983-87. He served the later terms in a wheelchair after being paralyzed below the waist in a 1972 assassination attempt by gunman Arthur Bremer. Wallace ran for president of the United States four times, in 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1976. In the 1980s he recanted his earlier racial views and sought reconciliation with black leaders.

Wallace was played by actor Gary Sinise in the 1997 HBO movie George Wallace; his wife Cornelia was played by Angelina Jolie.

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Britannica Concise Encyclopedia:

George Corley Wallace

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(born Aug. 25, 1919, Clio, Ala., U.S. — died Sept. 13, 1998, Montgomery, Ala.) U.S. politician. He served in the Alabama state legislature (1947 – 53). As a circuit court judge (1953 – 59), he was known for his resistance to federal investigations of racial discrimination. Campaigning as a segregationist, he was elected governor in 1963 and kept his pledge "to stand in the schoolhouse door" to prevent enrollment of African American students at the University of Alabama. He yielded only in the face of the federalized National Guard. Further confrontations made him a nationwide symbol of Southern opposition to racial integration. He formed the American Independent Party and was its presidential candidate in 1968, winning 13% of the popular vote. He again served as governor (1971 – 79). While campaigning for the 1972 Democratic presidential nomination, he was shot in an assassination attempt and left partly paralyzed. In the 1980s he renounced his segregationist views, and he won his last term as governor (1983 – 87) with support from African American voters.

For more information on George Corley Wallace, visit Britannica.com.

Oxford Dictionary of Political Biography:

George Corley Wallace

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(b. Clio, Alabama, 25 Aug. 1919; d. 13 Sept. 1998) US; representative in the Alabama State Legislature 1946 – 50, Governor of Alabama 1962 – 6, 1970 – 8, 1982 – 6 The son of a farmer, Wallace graduated LL B from the University of Alabama in 1942 and that same year was called to the bar in Alabama. During the Second World War he served with the USAF 1942 – 5, after which he returned to Alabama and the appointment of assistant state attorney. A Democrat, he began an active political career in 1946 when he was elected to the State Legislature. He was re-elected for a seocnd term in 1948. It was as a judge of the Third Judicial Circuit of Alabama 1953 – 9 that Wallace first revealed what were to become the planks of his future political platform: states' rights and segregationalism. At this time he acquired the nickname the "Fighting Judge" because of his intransigence in the face of the US Commission on Civil Rights investigations into discrimination in black voting rights.

It was as a racial moderate, however, that Wallace made a bid for the state governorship in 1958. His defeat at the hands of an undisguised segregationalist made him vow never to be "outsegged" again. In 1962 he won the governorship after an openly racist campaign and at his inauguration in 1963 he pledged himself to segregation. He carried out this pledge to the extent of physically blocking the enrolment of black students at the University of Alabama, yielding only in the face of the federally deployed National Guard. In 1966 he was legally ineligible for re-election, but his wife successfully ran for office and replaced him as Governor. His wife died in 1968 and Wallace regained the governorship in 1970 in 1974.

Wallace was a populist leader with ambitions to become President. As an unashamedly segregationist candidate he attempted unsuccessfully to gain the Democratic nomination in 1964. He tried again in 1968, as candidate for the American Independent Party, attempting to capitalize on the white backlash against Johnson's civil rights legislation. He failed to reach the White House but he did win 13.5 per cent of the popular vote and 46 electoral college votes. For his third try for the presidency, Wallace returned to the Democratic Party fold in 1972. On this occasion his campaign was brought to an abrupt end by an assassination attempt on 15 May 1972 at Laurel, Maryland. This left him permanently paralysed below the waist but, in 1976, from his wheelchair, he again contested the Democratic Party nomination but lost to Jimmy Carter. In 1982 the indefatigable and charismatic Wallace, having recanted his former segregationalist policies, was again elected governor of Alabama. He retired from politics in 1987.

Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

George Corley Wallace

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George Corley Wallace (born 1919) was an Alabama governor and a third-party presidential candidate in 1968.

Born on Aug. 25, 1919, at Clio, Ala., he studied at the University of Alabama and received his law degree in 1942. That same year he was admitted to the Alabama bar. In 1943 he married Lurleen Burns. They had four children. Between 1942 and 1945 Wallace served in the U.S. Army Air Force. After the war, he became assistant attorney general of Alabama. In 1947 he entered the Alabama Legislature, representing Barbour County, and remained until 1953. He served as judge of the Third Judicial District of Alabama between 1953 and 1958, after which he returned to private law practice in Clayton.

Wallace's experiences in Alabama politics prepared him for his election to governor in 1962. In 1966, barred by Alabama law from another term, he supported his wife's candidacy. Lurleen Wallace won a landslide victory. As governor, she admitted that her husband would continue to make the policy decisions. She died in May 1968. Mean-while her husband had emerged as a national political figure.

An outspoken critic of Federal-government interference in southern schools and an ardent segregationist, Wallace entered a number of presidential primary races in 1964, largely to channel opposition to the civil rights bill. His name appeared on the ballots in at least nine states, and in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland he polled 25, 30, and 43 percent of the vote respectively. At the governors' conference in June, he declared that he would run in the national election wherever he could place his name on the ballot. When the republican party nominated a conservative candidate, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona, however, Wallace withdrew from the race.

In February 1968 Wallace announced his intention to again challenge the Democratic and Republican parties in the race for the presidency. His appeal, as in 1964, embraced the discontent of conservative citizens, rich and poor, who believed their welfare endangered by high taxes, liberal court decisions, and Federal interference in local and state affairs. Wallace's program, repeated across the country almost without change, revealed his single-minded concern for property rights and freedom of local and individual decision - which, he warned, were threatened by the Federal bureaucracy.

Wallace's program called for an end to crime in the cities. He denied that he favored segregation but insisted that individuals rather than government officials had the right to decide where their children would go to school and to whom they would sell their houses. Although his campaign lost momentum during its final weeks, his strong states'-rights stand gave him wide support in the Deep South. In the November election he captured Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. His popular vote across the country was almost 14 percent.

In 1970 Wallace won a landslide victory for a second term as governor of Alabama. The following year he married Cornelia Ellis Snively in Montgomery. In 1972 he entered the presidential campaign as a Democrat and had victories in Michigan and Maryland. In May, while campaigning in Maryland, he was shot and was partially paralyzed as a result of the assassination attempt.

In 1982 he ran again and won a fourth term as governor of Alabama. His final term saw him sponsor an Alabama constitutional amendment that created an oil and gas trust fund whose interest supported the finances of all non-education segments of state government. He also worked a controversial bill that restructured the state's job-injury laws along with an attempt to promote a $310 million education bond issue. His further attempts, however, to fund education programs by raising property and income taxes met with failure.

In his later years, Wallace apologized for his stance against integration he held early in his political career. At the same time, he insisted that his infamous statements supporting segregation had to do with his fight against federal courts interfering with state issues rather than a being sign of racism against blacks. In a 1992 interview in Time, Wallace said he eventually realized that "either we had to do away with segregation or we wouldn't have peace in this country." He added, "I know that I love every citizen of Alabama, black and white." In March of 1995, Wallace was present for a reenactment of the famous Selma to Montgomery civil rights march of 1965.

Further Reading

John Craig Stewart, The Governors of Alabama, 1975; James Gregory The Wallaces of Alabama: My Family by George Wallace, Jr., 1975; Marshall Frady, Wallace (1968), is a fascinating personality study of Wallace by a journalist. A biting, unsympathetic profile of Wallace is in Robert Sherrill, Gothic Politics in the Deep South: Stars of the New Confederacy (1968). Discussions of Wallace's career and impact on the 1968 presidential elections are in Lewis Chester and others, An American Melodrama: The Presidential Campaign of 1968 (1969); David English and the Staff of the London Daily Express, Divided They Stand (1969); and Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, 1968 (1969). For further information, please see George C. Wallace, the Politics of Race, produced by ABC news (1994); Boston Globe (December 2, 1993); Chicago Tribune (January 30, 1996); New York Times (February 11, 1994); and Time (March 2, 1992).

(1919- ), Alabama governor, four-time candidate for president of the United States. Wallace began his political career as a moderate to liberal Alabama politician in the mold of his mentor, Governor James Folsom. When he lost his first run for the governorship in 1958 at the hands of an ultrasegregationist candidate, Wallace vowed he would "never be out-niggered again." Four years later he swept to victory.

In his 1963 inaugural address Wallace promised his white followers: "Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!" The promise lasted six months. In June of that year, he "stood in the schoolhouse door" at the University of Alabama but stepped aside to allow the enrollment of black students. When desegregation came to the public schools in the fall of 1963 he vowed resistance but eventually capitulated to federal court orders.

His defense of segregation, however, made him enormously popular among whites. During the 1960s he tightened his hold on his power base in the state, combining bellicose anti-civil rights rhetoric with a heavy dose of social spending. Rake-offs from state contractors and support from thousands of small contributors furnished a solid financial base for his political activities.

His testimony before congressional committees, appearances on national news and interview shows, and speaking tours outside the South made him a leading national spokesman for resistance to racial change. In 1964 he entered the Democratic presidential primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland. Religious, political, and community leaders in those states denounced him as a racist, but he drew 34 percent of the primary vote in Wisconsin, 30 percent in Indiana, and 43 percent in Maryland. The civil rights movement was at high tide, but Wallace's successful campaign showed the extent of "white backlash."

A strong run as the candidate of his American Independent party in 1968 proved his 1964 appeal was not a fluke. Despite state laws that often handicapped third-party candidates, Wallace managed to get on the ballot in all fifty states and in the election, he drew 10 million votes, half of them from outside the South.

In 1972, his political fortunes peaked when he returned to the Democratic party. Nixon operatives, welcoming Wallace as a divisive force among the Democrats, gave his campaign covert tactical support, but his appeal was all his own. Still running on a platform to "get tough with protestors," end court-ordered school busing (which had increasingly affected northern voters), and restore respect for "law and order," he rolled up wins and strong showings throughout the South and Midwest, culminating with victories on May 16 in Michigan and Maryland.

But twenty-four hours before the May 16 sweep, he was shot and seriously wounded by Arthur Bremner at an outdoor rally in Laurel, Maryland. This ended his presidential campaign.

George Wallace speaking softly from a wheelchair was never able to reignite the support that had carried him to national prominence. When he ran again in 1976, Jimmy Carter from Georgia trounced him in North Carolina and Florida, destroying his southern political base. He had nevertheless proved himself one of the major political figures of the 1960s and 1970s, shaping the agenda of social conservatism and white backlash that would dominate the politics of the 1980s.

Wallace served another term as governor in 1983-1987, winning with the overwhelming support of black voters. In an ironic conclusion to his career, the man who had promised segregation forever made more black political appointments than any figure in Alabama history.

Bibliography:

Jody Carlson, George C. Wallace and the Politics of Powerlessness (1981); Marshall Frady, Wallace (1968).

Author:

Dan T. Carter

See also American Independent Party; Civil Rights Movement; Elections: 1968; Third Parties.


Columbia Encyclopedia:

George Corley Wallace

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Wallace, George Corley, 1919-98, governor of Alabama (1963-67, 1971-79, 1983-87), b. Clio, Ala. Admitted to the bar in 1942, he was active in the Alabama Democratic party, serving in the state assembly (1947-53) and as a district court judge (1953-59). In 1962 he won election as governor as an avowed segregationist, and promised to defy federal orders to integrate Alabama schools. In June, 1963, Wallace blocked two black students from entering the Univ. of Alabama, but capitulated when President Kennedy federalized the Alabama national guard. Prevented by state law from succeeding himself as governor in 1966, Wallace had his wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace, 1926-68, run successfully in his place. As a leading opponent of the civil-rights movement, Wallace campaigned for president in 1968 on a third-party ticket, capitalizing on racist and anti-Washington attitudes in both North and South to energize many. In 1970, he was reelected governor of Alabama. In 1972, he entered the Democratic presidential primaries; his campaign ended abruptly on May 15, when an assassination attempt by Arthur H. Bremer left him paralyzed below the waist. In 1974 Wallace was overwhelmingly reelected governor, and in 1976 he made another unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination. He later moved to reconcile with African Americans and recanted white supremacist positions, and in 1982 he was again elected governor, this time with the support of many black Alabamans; he retired in 1987.

Bibliography

See biographies by W. G. Jones (1966), M. Frady (1968), and S. Lesher (1994); study by D. T. Carter (1995).

A political leader of the twentieth century. As governor of Alabama in the 1960s, he resisted integration and promised to “stand at the schoolhouse door” to bar black people from admission to the University of Alabama. The National Guard eventually forced him to back down. In 1968, he was nominated for president by a third party, the American Independent party, and came in third, behind Richard Nixon and Hubert Humphrey. In 1972, he ran for president again, but was shot and paralyzed by a would-be assassin during the campaign. Wallace presented himself as a populist (see populism), who championed poor and middle-income whites against blacks and wealthy, liberal whites. In a remarkable reversal of positions, he endorsed integration in the 1980s and was again elected governor of Alabama for four years.

West's Encyclopedia of American Law:

Wallace, George Corley

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As the governor of Alabama and a presidential aspirant, George Corley Wallace did battle with the civil rights movement and defied federal efforts to desegregate schools in his state. His fight against school integration pitted him against federal courts, troops, and the administration of President John F. Kennedy in a showdown over federal authority. Only the pressure of the Alabama National Guard, which Kennedy took command of in June 1963, managed to remove Wallace from the door of the University of Alabama, where he stood blocking the admission of two African American students. His schoolhouse stand, as it came to be known, lionized Wallace in the hearts and minds of southerners and helped launch an increasingly successful national political career. While scoring victories in the 1972 Democratic presidential primaries, he was left partially paralyzed by gunshots from a would-be assassin—an incident that precipitated a political metamorphosis in Wallace. Though he failed to gain the presidency, he continued to serve the state of Alabama until 1987, when poor health forced him to leave the office after four terms and seventeen-and-a-half years.

Wallace was born August 25, 1919, the first of four children of George Wallace, Sr., and Mozelle Smith Wallace. Only a few hundred people lived in his birthplace, the small town of Clio, Alabama. His father weathered the Depression by leasing land to sharecroppers, although the family never had much money. Wallace was encouraged by his father in two areas: politics and boxing. At the age of fifteen, he became a page in the Alabama state legislature. A good student, athletic and popular, he finished high school as his senior class president. His punch served him well, too, and in 1936 and 1937, he won the Alabama Golden Gloves Championship.

In 1937 Wallace entered the University of Alabama, with only two shirts and the desire to have a career in politics. He took four jobs, finished his degree, and remained at the university to study law. He earned his law degree in 1942, and enlisted in the Army Air Corps for pilot training. Soon after, a near-fatal case of spinal meningitis ended his dreams of being a pilot, but in World War II, he went to the Pacific as a flight engineer on a B-29 bomber called The Sentimental Education.

After the war, his political career quickly took off. His first appointment was as state assistant attorney general. Then, in 1946, at the age of twenty-seven, Wallace won election to the Alabama House of Representatives. He soon established a high profile, twice being voted an outstanding member of the house. Wallace sponsored a number of liberal bills. He supported legislation that provided social security for county and municipal employees, created junior colleges and trade schools, and offered free tuition to the widows and children of men who had died at war.

Drawing on his name recognition as a legislator, he ran for a judgeship in 1952, winning election to Alabama's Third Circuit Court.

In 1958 he launched his first gubernatorial campaign. This election would be a turning point in Wallace's politics. Wallace's chief opponent in the Democratic primary was state attorney general John Patterson. Both candidates favored segregation, but Patterson's campaign had an edge: it was backed by the Ku Klux Klan. When Wallace lost the election by nearly sixty-five thousand votes, he vowed publicly never again to be "out-segged." After spending four years in private law practice with his brother Gerald, Wallace returned to politics in 1962 to run for governor again. This time, his opponent was former governor James Folsom. Wallace won the election and took office just as the civil rights movement was gaining momentum.

Wallace and other segregationists were determined to keep the civil rights movement out of Alabama. When Martin Luther King, Jr., and his fellow activists set out to integrate the city of Birmingham in 1963, violence met them repeatedly. Birmingham police officers unleashed water hoses, dogs, and clubs on the demonstrators and then Wallace dispatched the state troopers. Wearing steel helmets painted with Confederate flags, this force entered Birmingham with shotguns to crush the demonstration. Throughout the summer, while Ku Klux Klan members visited the governor's mansion to offer their services, there were bombings and shootings in Wallace's Alabama.

In the same year a federal judge ordered the University of Alabama to allow two black students to enroll. When Wallace vowed to prevent them from entering the university, U.S. attorney general Robert F. Kennedy traveled to Alabama to warn him that the Kennedy administration would enforce the court's decree.

On June 11, 1963, Wallace, having advised citizens of Alabama to stay away from the university, stood at a podium before the school door. Attorney General Kennedy telephoned once more, only to be told that the governor was unavailable. As reporters, photographers, and police officers watched, Wallace held up his hand to prevent Vivian Malone and James Hood from entering. Then he holed himself up inside the school for four hours. Meanwhile, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National Guard, which then moved in and forced Wallace to admit the students.

In 1964 Wallace sought the Republican party's presidential nomination. He did well in two early primaries, but the endorsement went to Senator Barry M. Goldwater, of Arizona. Wallace ran again as an independent in 1968, with moderate success, and sought the Democratic nomination four years later. In this race, he swept aside challengers such as George S. McGovern, Hubert H. Humphrey, and John V. Lindsay in the Florida primary. But he would not complete the race.

On May 15, 1972, moments after giving a speech at a Laurel, Maryland, shopping center, Wallace was shot five times. His would-be assassin, Arthur Bremer, was caught, convicted, and sentenced to fifty-three years in prison. The shooting left the governor paralyzed from the waist down. It also began a provocative transformation of identity.

Reelected as governor in 1974, and serving consecutive terms until his retirement in 1986, Wallace gradually retreated from his segregationist views.

When poor health forced Wallace to forego running for a fifth term as governor in 1986, he left a legacy far different from the one suggested by his first term in office. In contrast to the obstinate figure blocking the door to the University of Alabama, he had become a leader recognized for lasting contributions to both blacks and whites. He had appointed several African Americans to important state posts. A statewide junior college system, increased state aid to black universities, support for inner cities, and improved industrial development were all credited to him.


Wikipedia on Answers.com:

George Wallace

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George Wallace
Wallace announces he is a presidential candidate on a third party ticket, February 8, 1968.
45th 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 Jere Beasley
Preceded by Albert Brewer
Succeeded by Fob James
In office
January 17, 1983 – January 19, 1987
Lieutenant Bill Baxley
Preceded by Fob James
Succeeded by H. Guy Hunt
First Gentleman of Alabama
In office
January 16, 1967 – May 7, 1968
Preceded by Lurleen Wallace
Succeeded by Martha Farmer Brewer
Personal details
Born George Corley Wallace
August 25, 1919(1919-08-25)
Clio, Alabama
Died September 13, 1998(1998-09-13) (aged 79)
Montgomery, Alabama
Resting place Greenwood Cemetery

Montgomery, Alabama

Political party Democratic
American Independent Party (1968)
Spouse(s) Lurleen Wallace (deceased)
Cornelia Ellis Snively (divorced)
Lisa Taylor (divorced)
Alma mater University of Alabama
Profession Politician, lawyer
Religion Methodist
Signature
Military service
Service/branch United States Army Air Force
Years of service 1942-1945
Rank Staff Sergeant
Battles/wars World War II

George Corley Wallace (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician and the 45th governor of Alabama, serving four terms: 1963–1967, 1971–1979 and 1983–1987. After four runs for U. S. president (three as a Democrat and one on the American Independent Party ticket), he earned the title of "the most influential loser" in 20th-century U.S. politics, according to biographers Dan T. Carter[1] and Stephan Lesher.[2]

A 1972 assassination attempt left Wallace paralyzed, and he used a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He is remembered for his Southern populist and[3] pro-segregation attitudes during the American desegregation period, convictions he renounced later in life.[4]

Contents

Early life

The first of four children, Wallace was a native of Barbour County, Alabama. He was born in the town of Clio, in rural southeast Alabama, to George Corley Wallace and Mozell Smith Wallace. He was the third of four generations to have the name George Wallace, but as neither parent liked the name "Junior", he was called George C. to distinguish him from his father, George, and his grandfather, Dr. Wallace.[5] Wallace's father had dropped out of college to pursue a life of farming when prices were high during World War I; Mozell had to sell their farmland to pay existing mortgages when George Sr. died in 1937.[6] George, like his parents, became a life-long Methodist.[7]

Wallace was fascinated with politics from the age of 10, winning a contest to serve as a page for the Alabama Senate in 1935 and confidently predicting that he would one day be governor.[8] Wallace became a regionally successful boxer in high school, then went directly to law school at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa in 1937.[9] He was a member of the Delta Chi Fraternity. After receiving a LL.B. degree in 1942, he entered pilot cadet training in the Air Force. He washed out, became a staff sergeant and flew B-29 combat missions over Japan in 1945.[10] He served with the XX Bomber Command 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 with sulfa drugs saved him. He was left with partial hearing loss and nerve damage; he 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 as one of the assistant attorneys general of Alabama, and in 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 Dixiecrat 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. In his 1963 inauguration as governor, Wallace excused this action on political grounds.

In 1952, he became the Circuit Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit in Alabama. Here he became known as "the fighting little judge," a nod to his past boxing association.[11] He gained a reputation for fairness regardless of the race of the plaintiff, and J. L. Chestnut, a black lawyer, recalled, "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."[11][note 1] On the other hand, "Wallace was the first Southern judge to issue an injunction against removal of segregation signs in railroad terminals."[12] Wallace blocked federal efforts to review Barbour County voting lists, for which he was cited for criminal contempt of court in 1959.[12] Wallace also granted probation to some blacks, which may have cost him the 1958 gubernatorial election.[13]

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.[11] 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."[note 2]

In the wake of his defeat, Wallace "made a Faustian bargain," said Emory University professor Dan Carter. "In order to survive and get ahead politically in the 1960s, he sold his soul to the devil on race."[14] He adopted hard-line segregationism, and used this stand to court the white vote in the next gubernatorial election. 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."[15]

Governor of Alabama

Segregation

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.

Wallace 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 marking the spot where, 102 years earlier, 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.[15][16]

The line, based on a bible quote,[17] was written by Wallace's new speechwriter, Asa Earl Carter.

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.[18][19]

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."[20]

Economics and education

The principal achievement of Wallace's first term was an innovation in Alabama industrial development that several other states later copied: 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 Alabama.

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

The University of South Alabama, a new state university in Mobile, was chartered in 1963 during Wallace's first year in office as governor.

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.

Building upon his newfound public image following the University of Alabama controversy, Wallace entered the Democratic primaries on the advice of a public relations expert from Wisconsin.[21] Wallace campaigned strongly by expressing his opposition on integration and a tough on crime platform. In Democratic primaries in Wisconsin, Maryland and Indiana, he won a third of the vote in each state.[22]

Wallace was known for stirring up crowds with his oratory. The Huntsville Times interviewed Bill Jones, Wallace's first press secretary, who recounted "a particularly fiery speech in Cincinnati in 1964 that scared even Wallace." "Wallace angrily shouted to a crowd of 1000 that 'little pinkos' were 'running around outside' protesting his visit, and continued, after thunderous applause, Wallace said, "When you and I start marching and demonstrating and carrying signs, we will close every highway in the country." The audience leapt to their feet "and headed for the exit." Jones said, "It shook Wallace. He quickly moved to calm them down."[13]

At graduation in the Spring of 1964, Bob Jones University honored Wallace with an honorary doctorate.[23] At the commencement, Bob Jones, Jr. read the following citation as a tribute to Wallace:

Men who have fought for truth and righteousness have always been slandered, maligned, and misrepresented. The American Press in its attacks upon Governor Wallace has demonstrated that it is no longer free, American, or honest. But you, Mr. Governor, have demonstrated not only by the overwhelming victories in the recent elections in your own state of Alabama but also in the showing which you have made in states long dominated by cheap demagogues and selfish radicals that there is still in America love for freedom, hard common sense, and at least some hope for the preservation of our Constitutional liberties.[24]


First Gentleman of Alabama

Term limits in the Alabama 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. 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. However, she died in office on May 7, 1968, of cancer, during her husband's second presidential campaign.[25] She was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer, reducing Wallace's influence until his new bid for election in his own right in November 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. Wallace's foreign policy positions set him apart from the other candidates in the field. "If the Vietnam War was not winnable within 90 days of his taking office, Wallace pledged an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops...Wallace also called foreign aid money 'poured down a rat hole' and demanded that European and Asian allies pay more for their defense."[26]

Richard Nixon worried that Wallace might split the conservative vote and allow the Democratic candidate, Vice President Hubert Humphrey, to win. 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, further incensing Republicans.

In Wallace's 1998 obituary, Huntsville Times political editor John Anderson summarized the impact from the 1968 campaign, saying, "His startling appeal to millions of alienated white voters was not lost on Richard Nixon and other GOP strategists. First Nixon, then Ronald Reagan, and finally George H.W. Bush successfully adopted a toned-down version of Wallace's anti-busing, anti-federal government platform to pry low and middle-income whites from the Democratic New Deal coalition."[13] Dan Carter, a professor of history at Emory University in Atlanta offered, "George Wallace laid the foundation for the dominance of the Republican Party in American society through the manipulation of racial and social issues in the 1960s and 1970s. He was the master teacher and Richard Nixon and the Republican leadership that followed were his students."[14]

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 objected: Chandler had supported the hiring of Jackie Robinson by the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Wallace retracted the invitation, and (after considering Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Colonel Sanders)[26] chose Air Force General Curtis LeMay. LeMay was considered instrumental in the establishment of the modern U.S. Air Force, and an expert in military affairs. His four-star military rank, experience at Strategic Air Command and presence advising President Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis were considered foreign-policy assets to the Wallace campaign. By 1968, LeMay had retired and was serving as chairman of the board of an electronics company, but the company threatened to dismiss him if he took a leave of absence to run for vice president. To keep LeMay on the ticket, Wallace backer and Texas oil tycoon H.L. Hunt set up a million-dollar fund to reimburse LeMay for any income lost in the campaign.[27] At this time, LeMay was best known to the American public as an enthusiastic proponent of the use of nuclear weapons in war. Campaign aides tried to persuade him to avoid questions relating to the topic, but when asked about it at his first interview, he attempted to dispel American "phobias about nuclear weapons" and discussed radioactive land crabs at Bikini atoll. The issue became a drag on Wallace's candidacy for the rest of the campaign.[28]

In 1968, when Wallace pledged that "If some anarchist lies down in front of my automobile, it will be the last automobile he will ever lie down in front of," and asserted that the only four letter words of which 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 Republicans and Democrats."

Major media outlets observed the support Wallace received from extremist groups such as White Citizens' Councils. It has been noted that members of such groups had permeated the Wallace campaign by 1968 and, while Wallace did not openly seek their support, nor did he refuse it.[29] Indeed, at least one case has been documented of the pro-Nazi[30] and white supremacist[31] Liberty Lobby distributing a pro-Wallace pamphlet entitled "Stand up for America" despite the campaign's denial of such a connection.[32]

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-Democratic, non-Republican candidate to win any electoral votes. (John Hospers in 1972, Ronald Reagan in 1976, Lloyd Bentsen in 1988 and John Edwards in 2004 all received one electoral vote from faithless electors, 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 fascist, 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."[33]

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.[34] 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."[35]

In the primary, Brewer got the most votes but failed to win an outright majority, triggering a run-off election.[36]

In what Former President Jimmy Carter calls "one of the most racist campaigns in modern southern political history,"[36] 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."[37] Wallace called Brewer "Sissy Britches"[38] and promised not to run for president a third time.[35][36]

Wallace defeated Brewer in the runoff. The day after the election, he flew to Wisconsin to campaign for the White House.[35] 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.[34]

Democratic presidential primaries of 1972 and assassination attempt

On 13 January 1972, Wallace 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 that he had always been a moderate.[11] Though no longer in favor of segregation, Wallace was opposed to desegregation busing during his campaign.[39] This was a position Nixon, who had instituted the first Affirmative Action program in 1969 with the Philadelphia Plan that established goals and timetables, would oppose early on as President.

For the next four months, Wallace's campaign went extremely well. However, he 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. Wallace was hit in the abdomen and chest, and 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. A five-hour operation was needed that evening and Wallace received several pints of blood to survive. Three others were wounded in the shooting and 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 sixty-three years in prison on August 4, 1972, later reduced to fifty-three years two months later. Bremer served thirty-five and a half years and was released on parole on November 9, 2007. Wallace forgave Bremer 23 years later, in August 1995, and wrote to him, but Bremer never replied. Bremer's actions inspired the screenplay (1972)[40] for the 1976 movie Taxi Driver which in turn inspired the assassination attempt on the life of President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley, Jr. in 1981. The 1975 film Nashville also featured a character, played by David Hayward, of whom many believe was based on Bremer.

Following the assassination attempt, Wallace was visited at the hospital by Democratic Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm,[41] a representative from Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn who at the time was the nation's only African American female member of Congress. Despite their ideological differences and the opposition of Chisholm's constituents, Chisholm felt that to visit Wallace was the humane thing to do.

Following the shooting, Wallace won primaries in Maryland and Michigan, but his near assassination effectively ended his campaign. From his wheelchair, Wallace spoke at the Democratic National Convention in Miami on July 11, 1972.

Since Wallace was out of Alabama for more than twenty days while he was recovering in Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring, Maryland, the state constitution required Lieutenant Governor Jere Beasley to serve as acting governor from June 5 until Wallace's return to Alabama on July 7. He continued serving as governor, and easily won the gubernatorial primary election of 1974.

In 1992, asked to comment on the 20th anniversary of his attempted assassination, Wallace said, "I've had 20 years of pain."[42]

Democratic presidential primaries of 1976

Wallace announced his fourth bid for the presidency in November 1975. The campaign was plagued by voter concern about his health, as well as the media's use of images that portrayed him as helpless.[citation needed] His supporters complained that such coverage was motivated by bias, citing the discretion used in coverage of Franklin D. Roosevelt's paralysis, before television became commercially available. In the Southern primaries and caucuses, Wallace carried only Mississippi, South Carolina and his home state of Alabama. If the popular vote in all primaries and caucuses were combined, Wallace would have placed third behind Jimmy Carter and California Governor Jerry Brown. After the primaries were completed and he had lost several Southern primaries to former Georgia governor Jimmy Carter, Wallace dropped out, in June 1976. He eventually endorsed Carter, and later claimed that he had facilitated a Southerner's nomination; however, no position advocated by Wallace was included in the 1976 Democratic platform.

Final term as governor

Change of positions

Wallace announced that he was a born-again Christian in the late 1970s, and apologized to black civil rights leaders for his earlier segregationist positions. He said that while he had once sought power and glory, he realized he needed to seek love and forgiveness.[note 3] In 1979, Wallace said of his stand in the schoolhouse door: "I was wrong. Those days are over and they ought to be over."[4] His final term as Governor (1983–1987) saw a record number of black appointments to government positions.[43] Also in his final term, Wallace was the first governor to appoint two black members in the same cabinet, a number that has been equalled but never surpassed. 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 McMillan. 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. Polling experts said this was the best chance since Reconstruction for a Republican to be elected Alabama governor.[citation needed] However, it was Wallace who made the victory speech on Election Night.

George Wallace achieved four gubernatorial terms across three decades, totaling 16 years in office.

Marriages and children

Wallace's first wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace, died shortly after becoming the first (and, as of 2012, only) woman to be elected as governor of Alabama in 1966. (In 1961, in keeping with the custom of the time to shield patients from the emotional impact of discussion of cancer, Wallace had withheld information from her that a uterine biopsy had found possibly precancerous cells.) They had four children together: Bobbi Jo (1944) Parsons, Peggy Sue (1950) Kennedy, George III, known as George Junior (1951), and Lee (1961) Dye, who was named after Robert E. Lee. After her death the couple's younger children, aged 18, 16, and 6, were sent to live with family members and friends for care (their eldest daughter had already married and left home).[25] Their son, commonly called George Wallace, Jr., is a Republican active in Alabama politics. He was twice elected State Treasurer as a Democrat, and twice elected to the state Public Service Commission.

On January 4, 1971, Wallace wed the former Cornelia Ellis Snively (1939–2009), a niece of former Alabama Governor Jim Folsom, known as "Big Jim". The attractive "C'nelia" had been a performer and was nicknamed "the Jackie Kennedy of the rednecks." Her mother, the colorful and notorious Ruby Folsom, commented when told of the marriage: "Why, George ain't titty high." The couple had a bitter divorce in 1978. A few months after the divorce, she told Parade magazine, "I don't believe George needs a family. He just needs an audience. The family as audience wasn't enough for his ego."[13] The second Mrs. Wallace died on January 8, 2009, at the age of 69.[44]

In 1981, Wallace married Lisa Taylor, a country music singer; they divorced in 1987.

Final years

In 1996, when asked by a reporter which contemporary American political figure he most admired, he paused thoughtfully for a moment, smiled, and said: "Myself."[citation needed]

At a 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 died of septic shock from a bacterial infection in Jackson Hospital in Montgomery on September 13, 1998. He suffered from respiratory problems in addition to complications from his gunshot spinal injury. He is interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomery.

The George Wallace Tunnel on Interstate 10 which traverses the Mobile Bay is named in his honor. Wallace was the subject of a documentary, George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire, shown by PBS on The American Experience in 2000.[11][45] The TNT cable network also produced a movie George Wallace in 1997, which was a John Frankenheimer film starring Gary Sinise, who would win an Emmy for his performance as Wallace the very night of the real Wallace's death.

Notes

  1. ^ At the time, it was common practice for judges in the area to refer to black lawyers by their first names, while their white colleagues were addressed formally as "Mister".
  2. ^ Carter (1996, p. 2) notes that Wallace would later deny a similar quote that appeared in a 1968 biography by Marshall Frady: "'Well boys,' he said tightly as he snuffed out his cigar, 'no other son-of-a-bitch will ever out-nigger me again.'" Riechers, Maggie (March/April 2000). "Racism to Redemption: The Path of George Wallace". Humanities 21 (2). http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2000-03/wallace.html. Retrieved 2006-05-25. 
  3. ^ According to Carter (1995, pp. 236-37), "But no one who knew Wallace well ever took seriously his earnest profession - uttered a thousand times after 1963 - that he [had been] a segregationist, not a racist. ... Wallace, like most white southerners of his generation, [had] genuinely believed blacks to be a separate, inferior race."

References

  1. ^ Carter, Dan T. (1995). The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster. p. 468. ISBN 0807125970. 
  2. ^ Lesher, Stephan (1994). George Wallace: American Populist. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley. p. xi. ISBN 0201622106. 
  3. ^ "Fatal Attraction". http://www.newamerica.net/publications/articles/1999/fatal_attraction. , New America Foundation
  4. ^ a b Edwards, George C., Government in America: people, politics, and policy(2009), Pearson Education, 80.
  5. ^ Carter (1995), p. 21.
  6. ^ Carter (1995), p. 41.
  7. ^ Carter, (1995) p 137
  8. ^ Carter (1995), pp. 30-31.
  9. ^ "Alabama Governor George Wallace, gubernatorial history". Archives.state.al.us. http://www.archives.state.al.us/govs_list/g_wallac.html. Retrieved 2011-01-08. 
  10. ^ Lesher (1994) pp 47-61
  11. ^ a b c d e Mccabe, Daniel (writer, director, producer), Paul Stekler (writer, director, producer), Steve Fayer (writer) (2000). George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire (Documentary). Boston, USA: American Experience. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0240534/. 
  12. ^ a b Anderson, John (September 14, 1998). "Former governor shaped politics of Alabama, nation". The Huntsville Times (Huntsville, Alabama): p. A8.  referencing Frady, Marshall (1968). Wallace.. New York: World Pub. Co.. ISBN 067977128X. OCLC 588644. 
  13. ^ a b c d Anderson, John (September 14, 1998). "Former governor shaped politics of Alabama, nation". The Huntsville Times (Huntsville, Alabama): p. A8. 
  14. ^ a b Carter, Dan, professor of history at Emory University, quoted in Anderson, John (September 14, 1998). "Former governor shaped politics of Alabama, nation". The Huntsville Times (Huntsville, Alabama): p. A1,A8. 
  15. ^ a b Public Broadcasting Service; WGBH (2000). "George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire: Wallace Quotes". The American Experience. PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/sfeature/quotes.html. Retrieved 2006-09-05. 
  16. ^ Michael J. Klarman (March/April 2004). "Brown v. Board: 50 Years Later". Humanities: the Magazine of the National Endowment for the Humanities. http://www.neh.gov/news/humanities/2004-03/brown.html. Retrieved 2006-09-05.. 
  17. ^ Cf. Hebrews 13:8: "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, forever" (KJV).
  18. ^ Sonnie Wellington Hereford IV (Spring 2005). "My Walk Into History" (– Scholar search). Notre Dame Magazine. Archived from the original on May 23, 2007. http://web.archive.org/web/20070523210708/http://www.nd.edu/~ndmag/sp2007/hereford.html. Retrieved 2008-02-08. [dead link]
  19. ^ A brief history of race and schools, The Huntsville Times
  20. ^ Alabama Governor George Wallace, public statement of May 8, 1963 in the New York Times. (May 9, 1963).
  21. ^ Carter (1995), p. 205.
  22. ^ Carter (1995), pp. 198-225.
  23. ^ Archie Vernon Huff, Greenville: the history of the city and county in the South Carolina Piedmont, Columbia: U South Carolina P, 1995, p. 404.
  24. ^ Sword of the Lord (June 26, 1964) 2.
  25. ^ a b Carter (1995), pp. 310-312, 317-320.
  26. ^ a b Kauffman, Bill (2008-05-19) When the Left Was Right, The American Conservative
  27. ^ Lesher, Stephan (1994). George Wallace: American Populist. Addison Wesley. p. 409. ISBN 9780201622102. 
  28. ^ LeMay and Chandler in Perlstein, Rick (2008). Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America. Simon and Schuster. p. 348. ISBN 9780743243025. 
  29. ^ Diamond, Sara (1995). Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. New York: Guilford Press. pp. 142–146. ISBN 0898628644. 
  30. ^ Trento, Joseph and Spear, Joseph, "How Nazi Nut Power Has Invaded Capitol Hill", True (November 1969): 39.
  31. ^ Pearson & Anderson, "The Washington Merry-go-round", [url=http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/bitstream/2041/52940/b19f19-1026zdisplay.pdf], 1966.
  32. ^ Carter (1995), pp. 296-297.
  33. ^ Woodward, Bob; Scott Armstrong (September 1979). The Brethren. Simon & Schuster. ISBN 0-671-24110-9. Page 56.
  34. ^ a b William, Warren, et al (1994). Alabama: The History of a Deep South State. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press. p. 576. ISBN 0585263671. 
  35. ^ a b c http://www.steveflowers.us/columns/101205.htm Flowers, Steve, "Steve Flowerss Inside the Statehouse", October 12, 2005
  36. ^ a b c Carter, Dan T. (1996). From George Wallace to Newt Gingrich: Race in the Conservative Counterrevolution, 1963-1994. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 46–48. ISBN 019507680X. 
  37. ^ Swint, Di Kerwin C. (2006). Mudslingers: The Top 25 Negative Political Campaigns of All Time Countdown from No. 25 to No. 1. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 228. ISBN 0-275985105. 
  38. ^ "Season Openers - Printout". TIME. 1970-05-04. http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,943783,00.html. Retrieved 2011-01-08. 
  39. ^ Carter (1996), pp. 17-32.
  40. ^ Film Comment, March to April 1976 interview with Paul Schrader
  41. ^ Posted on January 4, 2005 11:49 PM (2005-01-04). "Shirley Chisholm". The Blog of Death. http://www.blogofdeath.com/archives/001272.html. Retrieved 2011-01-08. 
  42. ^ Wallace, George (September 14, 1998). "Wallace in his own words". The Huntsville Times (Huntsville, Alabama): p. A9. 
  43. ^ Foner, Eric; John Arthur Garraty, Society of American Historians (1991). The Reader's Companion to American History. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. p. 1127. ISBN 9780395513729. 
  44. ^ Former Alabama first lady Cornelia Wallace dies WZTV FOX17/Nashville
  45. ^ Public Broadcasting Service; WGBH (1999). "George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire (web site)". The American Experience. PBS. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/. Retrieved 2006-05-25.  Web site for the PBS documentary, including a complete transcript, references to other Wallace information, and tools for teachers.

External links

Political offices
Preceded by
John Malcolm Patterson
Governor of Alabama
January 14, 1963–January 16, 1967
Succeeded by
Lurleen Wallace
Preceded by
Albert Brewer
Governor of Alabama
January 18, 1971–January 15, 1979
Succeeded by
Fob James
Preceded by
Fob James
Governor of Alabama
January 17, 1983–January 19, 1987
Succeeded by
H. Guy Hunt
Party political offices
Preceded by
John Malcolm Patterson
Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Alabama
1962 (won)
Succeeded by
Lurleen Wallace
Preceded by
N/A
American Independent Party presidential nominee
1968 (3rd)
Succeeded by
John G. Schmitz
Preceded by
Lurleen Wallace
Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Alabama
1970 (won), 1974 (won)
Succeeded by
Fob James
Preceded by
Fob James
Democratic Party nominee for Governor of Alabama
1982 (won)
Succeeded by
Bill Baxley
Honorary titles
Preceded by
Lurleen Wallace
First Gentleman of Alabama
1967–1968
Succeeded by
Martha Farmer Brewer

 
 
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