George C. Wallace

American governor of Alabama (1963-1967, 1971-1979, 1983-1987)

• Born: August 25, 1919
• Birthplace: Clio, Alabama
• Died: September 13, 1998
• Place of death: Montgomery, Alabama

A long-term governor of Alabama and twice a candidate for the presidency, Wallace during the 1960’s became a leading spokesperson for continued segregation and southern conservatism.

Early Life

George C. Wallace was born in Clio, Alabama, to a family that had been among the earliest settlers in Barbour County, where Wallace spent his youth. His father was a farmer known for his quick temper and his passion for local politics. His mother, who came from a cosmopolitan neighborhood outside Birmingham, stoically accepted life in rural Alabama. Despite his family’s relative poverty, Wallace had a comfortable boyhood. The oldest of three boys and a girl, he was private and introspective, yet he was a good student and popular among his classmates. Throughout his youth, athletics played an important part in his life. In high school, he quarterbacked his school football team and was runner-up in the state Golden Gloves boxing competition.

Politics was part of Wallace’s life from an early age. One of his first memories was of watching local officials count votes; at seven, he helped his father hand out campaign material. Two years later, his grandfather was elected Barbour County probate judge after a campaign managed by Wallace’s father. Wallace later described the election as among his most exciting boyhood experiences. By his teen years, he was campaigning for candidates in state elections. Because of his political interests, he was encouraged to compete for an appointment as a page for the Alabama state senate. He was one of four winners, and he spent the summer of 1935 working in the state senate. On completion of his appointment, Wallace decided that he would one day like to serve as governor of Alabama.

During these early years, Wallace’s political philosophy began to take shape. Most important in the molding process was his father. Blaming northern industrial interests for the problems of the agrarian South, the elder Wallace bemoaned federal regulations that, he contended, limited the South’s ability to educate its people and to prosper. In reaction, he embraced the basic tenets of southern populism, including the principle of rigid segregation. During the early Depression years, he became an outspoken Roosevelt Democrat; at the same time, he vehemently opposed any federal intrusion into state or local matters. Young Wallace accepted most of his father’s political positions.

On graduation from Barbour County High School in 1937, Wallace enrolled in the pre-law program at the University of Alabama. Because his family could not afford to help with any of his academic expenses, he found several part-time jobs and began working his way through college. Two months into his freshman year, his father, who had suffered from chronic health problems for years, died. Wallace immediately returned home and proposed withdrawing from the university to run the family farm. Yet his mother, who had always encouraged his education, implored him to return to school, which he did. Two years later, he moved to advanced law studies, and he was graduated with a law degree in 1942.

The following October, Wallace was inducted into the Army Air Corps as an aviation cadet. Disenchanted with the training regimen, however, he requested reassignment. He spent the rest of his military service as a flight engineer and became part of a crew that flew numerous missions over Japan during the last weeks of World War II. While still an aviation cadet, he married sixteen-year-old Lurleen Burns.

Life’s Work

On his discharge from the Air Corps in December, 1945, Wallace, his young wife, and their new daughter returned to Alabama, where he began his political career in earnest. Among his first stops was the office of Governor Chauncey Sparks. He had met Sparks, who was also from Barbour County, during his days as a legislative page and had actively campaigned for him. The governor personally saw to it that Wallace was appointed as assistantattorney general; however, both men understood that the position was temporary and that Wallace would soon pursue elective office. Two months after his appointment, Wallace took an unpaid leave of absence to run for the state legislature. Riding a wave of resurgent southern populism and aided by boundless energy on the campaign trail, he won election making him, at twenty-seven, the state’s youngest legislator.

Wallace served two terms in the state legislature. During those eight years, he spoke repeatedly about the need to raise Alabama’s standard of living, one of the lowest in the nation. Among his more important initiatives was a call for the creation of a group of state-operated technical and vocational schools. He also became a champion of local government by introducing legislation designed to generate a bond issue that would help Alabama cities attract industry without sacrificing local control. Among his standard themes was a call to southern pride. Like his father, he warned about a northern post-Civil War legislative assault on the South. He advised southerners to remain vigilant and resist federal policies that might alter tradition. The federal policies he condemned most often involved civil rights issues.

While establishing himself as a capable and energetic legislator, Wallace also began to develop a base for his own statewide political organization. Among those he courted were former governor Sparks and current governor James “Big Jim” Folsom. Like Wallace, both generally took a progressive stand on economic issues. Both had also fought the “big mules” of Alabama politics the local cliques of bankers, industrialists, and plantation owners who collectively had controlled much of the state’s political structure for decades. In preparing his organization, Wallace also won support from several prominent businessmen and a few influential newspaper reporters.

Wallace first attracted national attention during the 1948 Democratic National Convention. Selected as an alternate delegate from Alabama, he got his chance to participate when a portion of the state’s delegation walked out of the convention in reaction to the party’s civil rights platform plank. Rather than join the “Dixiecrat” rebellion, he chose to stay and vehemently protest the plank as well as Harry Truman’s presidential nomination. The episode enhanced Wallace’s stature within Alabama and brought him national recognition. Eight years later, as he prepared to run for governor, Wallace again actively opposed his party’s civil rights position. This time, key leaders from southern delegations chose him as their spokesman to the platform committee. With the help of several powerful southern Democrats, he was able to dilute the language of the plank, making it merely an ambiguous pledge to end discrimination.

In 1952, Wallace was elected judge of the Third Circuit of Alabama, a district that included Barbour County. During the election, he established a style that would characterize his future campaigns. Aggressive and confrontational, he encouraged polarization of his voters by appealing to their fears and prejudices. Generally considered a congenial and fair judge, Wallace in 1958 became known as the “fighting judge” during a showdown with federal authorities. As part of an investigation into discrimination against black voters, Wallace was ordered by the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to make available voter-registration books. He refused, claiming that the rights of Alabamians were being intruded on by the federal government. Threatened with contempt charges and concerned about an approaching gubernatorial election, however, he eventually acceded to the commission’s demands.

Wallace was defeated in the 1958 gubernatorial election, but he won the office four years later. Though economic issues constituted an important part of his platform, a resolute opposition to federally required integration of Alabama schools became his primary plank. In June, 1963, less than a year after becoming governor, he lived up to his pledge to “stand in the schoolhouse door” when he personally attempted to block the enrollment of African American students at the University of Alabama; he yielded only after he was challenged by National Guard troops. The confrontation brought a flood of media coverage and much notoriety to Wallace. Similar episodes at Tuskegee, Birmingham, Huntsville, and Mobile further established him as the nation’s leading segregationist.

Rendered ineligible from running for reelection by his state’s constitution, Wallace maneuvered the 1966 Democratic gubernatorial nomination to his wife Lurleen. Though she took a more active role as governor than most expected, there was little doubt that Wallace continued to direct Alabama government. In 1968, two years into her term, however, Lurleen died from cancer. Despite the loss, Wallace maintained his grip on the state and was elected governor in 1970, 1974, and in 1982.

During his years as governor, Wallace steadfastly embraced several issues. Education, particularly at the postsecondary level, was always part of his agenda. Throughout his political career, he also advocated improving business conditions within the state. Likewise, road construction and the quality of the state’s health care facilities, especially in regard to the elderly and mentally disabled, were themes he regularly addressed. However, segregation continued to be the issue most identified with him; from his earliest days in the state legislature, he defended the practice. When segregationist laws throughout the South were challenged in the 1960’s, Wallace reacted aggressively against civil rights leaders and federally mandated integration. Only during his last term as governor did he begin to acknowledge that his earlier stance was wrong.

Wallace’s political aspirations were not limited to Alabama. In 1964, despite being a lifelong Democrat, he considered becoming Republican Barry Goldwater’s vice-presidential running mate. Four years later, Wallace captured forty-six electoral votes while running for the presidency as the candidate of the American Independent Party. He would run again in the 1972 Democratic primaries. It was at a campaign stop in Laurel, Maryland, in May, 1972, that Wallace was shot five times in an assassination attempt. The attack left him paralyzed below the waist.

Although he remained a political force to be reckoned with, Wallace’s national influence eroded after the attack. In 1982, campaigning from a wheelchair, he won a fourth term as governor by publicly recanting much of his earlier segregationist rhetoric. Slowed by failing health and marital problems, he retired from politics five year later. On September 13, 1998, Wallace died of respiratory and cardiac arrest in Montgomery, Alabama.

Significance

During the 1960’s, Wallace became the political voice of the traditional South. In many ways, his appeal recalled that of Populist candidates of the early twentieth century. Wallace advocated the interests of the small farmer, the blue-collar laborer, and the small business. At the heart of his appeal was a rejection of federal civil rights and school-integration policies. His fiery rhetoric and confrontational style aroused a grassroots conservatism throughout the South and elsewhere in the nation.

As a presidential candidate, Wallace tapped into a deep pool of voters who considered their interests to be underrepresented. In appealing to this constituency, he introduced several campaign themes that later became part of the conservative Republican agenda that carried Ronald Reagan into the White House. Among them was a call for massive tax reform, a pledge to support a school-prayer amendment to the constitution, an aggressive stance on law-and-order issues, and a promise to expand military programs. He also vowed to end federally required school busing. His appeals directly addressed an ever-deepening public distrust of the federal government and a concern about a disintegrating social order.

Bibliography

Black, Earl. Southern Governors and Civil Rights: Racial Segregation as a Campaign Issue in the Second Reconstruction. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1976. Provides a context for understanding Wallace’s segregationist policies and identifies him as one of the most outspoken opponents of federal involvement in school integration.

Canfield, James Lewis. A Chase of Third Party Activism: The George Wallace Campaign Workers and the American Independent Party. Washington, D.C.: University Press of America, 1984. While the author’s focus is on the campaign, he provides much information about Wallace and his political philosophy during the 1968 presidential election.

Carter, Daniel T. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. A biographical investigation of Wallace’s influence on the rise of conservatism in American politics. Combines scholarly analysis and an appealing style.

LaFeber, Walter. The Deadly Bet: LBJ, Vietnam, and the 1968 Election. Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005. Examines the presidential election of 1968, describing how domestic upheaval affected the outcome of the race. Provides information on the politicians who played a crucial role in the election, including a chapter entitled “George Wallace: The Populism of the Vietnam War Era.”

Lesher, Stephan. George Wallace: American Populist. New York: Addison-Wesley, 1993. A thorough biography of Wallace. The author suggests that his subject reflected traditional southern values in the context of the mid-twentieth century.

Rohler, Lloyd. George Wallace: Conservative Populist. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 2004. Traces Wallace’s life and political career, describing his transformation from a governor who was an ardent proponent of segregation to a governor who appointed numerous African Americans to state agencies and was supported by black voters.

Taylor, Sandra Baxley. Me ’n’ George: A Story of George Corley Wallace and His Number One Crony, Oscar Harper. Mobile, Ala.: Greenberry, 1988. Focuses on Wallace’s early political years and his rise to governor.