WALLACE, GEORGE C. 1919-

Governor of alabama, 1963-1967

From Moderate to Segregationist

George C. Wallace, a moderate even progressive politician on most issues, attracted national notoriety in the 1960s because of his defiance of federal orders to desegregate public education in Alabama. Wallace was a political protege of populist Alabama governor "Big Jim" Folsom and established a liberal voting record in the Alabama legislature during the 1950s. In 1958 he lost a runoff in the Democratic gubernatorial primary to Alabama Attorney General John Patterson, who campaigned with a strident segregationist message. Wallace, who was considered the moderate in that race, vowed that he would never again be beaten because he appeared to be less of a racist than his opponent. In 1962 he ran for governor again and won on a militant segregationist platform; at his inauguration he vowed to uphold "segregation now—segregation tomorrow—and segregation forever,"

Wallace versus King

During the drive by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) to desegregate public facilities in Birmingham in 1963, Wallace tried unsuccessfully to block a settlement between the protesters and local authorities and businessmen. In March 1965 Wallace was initially successful at preventing King from organizing a march from Selma to Montgomery to protest the denial of voting rights to blacks in southern states, including Alabama. But after a federal court ordered that the marchers be allowed to proceed, Wallace did not attempt to block them.

Wallace and Alabama Schools

By 1963 Alabama was the only southern state in which no schools at any level had been desegregated. When a federal court ordered the University of Alabama to enroll two blacks, Wallace stood in the doorway of the admissions office, blocking their entrance until federal authorities ordered him to stand aside. In September 1963 Wallace sent Alabama state troopers to prevent blacks from enrolling in "whites-only" public schools in Mobile, Tuskegee, Birmingham, and Huntsville. After he replaced the state troopers with Alabama National Guardsmen, the Kennedy administration federalized those troops and ordered them back to their armories. The schools were then desegregated, but Wallace continued his quixotic efforts to block integration. In 1966 he got his state legislature to pass a bill that declared the U.S. Office of Education desegregation guidelines null and void in Alabama.

Governor Lurleen

Unable to succeed himself in 1967, Wallace tried to convince the Alabama legislature to amend the state constitution to allow a governor to serve two consecutive terms. When the legislature failed to act, Wallace had his wife, Lurleen, run for governor in the election of 1966. She won, and until she died of cancer in 1968, he served as her special assistant and essentially continued to run the state.

Presidential Aspirations

Wallace ventured into national politics in 1964, when he ran in the Democratic presidential primaries in Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland and did surprisingly well outside the South, appealing to blue-collar white voters. In 1968, he ran as a third party candidate in all fifty states, campaigning against the intrusive power of the federal government and stressing the law and order issue. He sought the Democratic presidential nomination again in 1972 and 1976. During the 1972 primary campaign in Maryland, Wallace was shot and partially paralyzed in an attempt on his life.

Governor Again

In 1982 Wallace won his fourth term as governor of Alabama after repudiating segregation and winning support from black voters.

Sources:

Marshall Frady, Wallace (New York: World, 1968);

Stephan Lesher, George Wallace: American Populist (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1994).

Wallace, George C. (1919–1998), Alabama governor, presidential candidate.A 1942 graduate of the University of Alabama Law School, Wallace was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in 1946 and elected a circuit judge in 1953. A racial moderate until he lost a 1958 gubernatorial bid to an ultrasegregationist, Wallace vowed that he would “never be out‐niggered again.” Elected governor in 1962 as the civil rights movement gained momentum, he pledged “Segregation now! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” In 1963, however, after fulfilling a pledge to “stand in the schoolhouse door” at the University of Alabama, he stepped aside to allow the enrollment of black students. His segregationist stance won strong support among whites in his state and beyond. In 1964 he challenged Lyndon B. Johnson in the Democratic party's Wisconsin, Indiana, and Maryland presidential primaries, winning more than a third of the votes. Barred from a further consecutive gubernatorial term in 1966, he was succeeded by his wife, Lurleen.

As the presidential candidate of his American Independent party in 1968, Wallace drew ten million votes, half from outside the South, and carried five states. His running mate was the retired air force general Curtis LeMay, former head of the Strategic Air Command. Regaining the Alabama governorship in 1970, he entered the Democratic presidential primaries in 1972 (with President Richard M. Nixon's secret support), pledging to restore law and order, end court‐ordered school busing, and “get tough with protesters.” He made strong showings throughout the South and Midwest, including victories on 16 May in Michigan and Maryland.

The day before, however, an unemployed drifter shot and critically wounded Wallace at a rally in Maryland, leaving him permanently paralyzed below the waist. He retired in 1979 but regained the governorship in 1982, winning significant black support after repudiating his earlier racism. A major political figure of the 1960s and 1970s, Wallace helped shape the agenda of social conservatism and white blacklash that would dominate the politics of the 1980s.
See also Segregation, Racial; Sixties, The.

Bibliography

Marshall Frady , Wallace, 1968.
Dan T. Carter , The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics, 1995.

Dan T. Carter