November 30, 2016 • 33 mins
Wallace was one of the most prominent voices against the Civil Rights Movement and its objectives. He spent multiple campaigns for both governor and president on an explicitly pro-segregation platform.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, host of the new house Stuff
Works Now podcast. Every week, I'll be bringing you three
stories from our team about the weird and wondrous developments
we've seen in science, technology, and culture. Fresh episodes will
be out every Monday on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music,
and everywhere else that find podcasts are found. Welcome to
(00:22):
Stuff you Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tray
c Vee Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Over the past
few years, Holly, you and I have talked about a
number of prominent figures and moments in the civil rights movement.
(00:43):
That is correct. So we've talked about people like Rosa
Parks and Bird Rustin, and we've talked about Supreme Court
decisions like Brown versus Board and Loving versus Virginia, organizations
like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. But other than
talking sort of obliquely about the laws and practices and
social systems that have enforced segregation and discrimination in the
(01:06):
United States, as well as talking about some specific incidents
of racist violence, like the the destruction of the Greenwood
District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We've never really talked about the
opposition to that movement, So today we are talking about
one of the most prominent voices against the civil rights
(01:27):
movement and its objectives, Alabama Governor George Wallace, who spent
multiple campaigns for both governor and president on an explicitly
pro segregation platform. In his nineteen sixty three inaugural address
as governor of Alabama, he famously proclaimed segregation today, segregation tomorrow,
segregation forever. So we're going to be talking about violent
(01:49):
retaliation against the civil rights civil rights movement that happened
during his terms in office. And we're also going to
be talking a lot about his first wife, Lorline. He
was married other times, so we're not really getting into
that at all, but we all gonna are going to
talk about Lorelen, whose own story is both tied directly
to her husband's political career and includes a pretty disturbing
(02:12):
account of medical neglect. So George Corley Wallace, Jr. Was
born on August nineteen nineteen in southeastern Alabama, where his
father was a farmer. His political career started very early,
at the age of fifteen, when he served as a
government page at the Alabama State Capitol and made up
(02:32):
his mind to return one day as governor. In his
high school years, he was also a boxer, winning two
state titles in that sport. Wallace studied at the University
of Alabama, paying his tuition by waiting tables and boxing.
He graduated in nineteen thirty seven and then finished his
law degree in nineteen two. That same year, at the
(02:53):
age of twenty four, he met Lorlene Burns, who was
then sixteen, while she was working at a five and
dime in Tuscaloosa. She had graduated from high school early,
and she was working there to try to save up
money to go to nursing school. George was already very
interested in politics, something that didn't really interest Lorline at all,
but they quickly became inseparable. Not long after they met,
(03:15):
Wallace was inducted into the U. S. Army Air Corps
to serve in World War Two. He and Lorline got
marrying on May twenty one, ninety three, while he was
on leave after having contracted meningitis. They spent their honeymoon
in a friend's guest room. Although although George spent a
lot of his time out talking politics while he was
(03:35):
still stateside, Lorline traveled back and forth between her parents
home in Alabama and the air basis where he was stationed.
That's included a trip to New Mexico, which she made
with their five month old daughter, Bobby Joe, only to
find that George had not arranged housing for them on
the base. They wound up needing to stay in a
converted chicken coope. Soon, George would be stationed in the Pacific,
(03:56):
where he flew incendiary missions over Japan until being medically
discharged for severe anxiety in nineteen forty five. In nineteen
forty six, he started actively pursuing a political career. He
became assistant to the state attorney General, and in nineteen
forty seven he was elected to the Alabama State Legislature
as representative for the first of his two terms. During
(04:18):
his campaign, Lorline was the family's sole breadwinner. He was
elected a judge for the Third Judicial Court in nineteen
fifty three, a position that he retained until nineteen fifty eight,
and this job came with enough income for him to
buy a home for the family. Up until this point,
they had been living in a variety of rented rooms
(04:40):
and garage apartments. And his nickname became Fighting Little Judge,
both for his toughness from the bench and his former
time as a boxer while he was in school. Over
the same time, he and Lorline had two more children,
Peggy Sue born in nineteen fifty and George Corley Wallace
the third known as George Jr. In nineteen fifty one.
And Lerline was increasingly frustrated by her husband's devotion to politics,
(05:04):
often to the neglect of his family. At this point
in his career, people were calling George Wallace quote a
dangerous liberal. He was part of charismatic Governor Big Jim
Fulsom's reelection campaign in nineteen fifty three. Folsom was also
Wallace's mentor and in later years would be described as
being way ahead of his time in terms of social
(05:26):
progress and racial equality. Fulsom's positions during his career included
things like voting rights for black people, an end to
prison labor, better schools, funding for roads to make it
easier for farmers to get their crops to market, and
more government positions for women. Much of this, of course,
was an uphill battle and ultimately failed. A lot of
(05:49):
Wallace's policies in the earlier part of his career mostly
mirrored Folsoms. During his two terms in the state legislature,
he drafted legislation to promote vocational schools and attract manufacturing
jobs to Alabama. In ninety eight, when pro segregation Dixiecrats
walked out of the Democratic National Convention, both Wallace and
Folsome stayed put. While in office in the State House
(06:13):
of Representatives, Wallace sponsored a bill that taxed alcohol to
fund trade schools. The Wallace Act, which was signed in
nineteen fifty one and was half of what became known
as the Wallace Cater Acts, allowed municipalities to sell bonds
in order to fund industrial development. This was part of
an effort to bring jobs to Alabama and diversify the
(06:34):
state's economy. Critics called the Wallace Cater Acts socialistic. Another
criticism was that most of the industries that moved into
Alabama through the Acts incentive were low wage, non union
work that paid lower than the national average. In nineteen
fifty eight, Wallace embarked on his first campaign to be
the governor of Alabama. He continued on with the kind
(06:56):
of populist policies and relatively moderate position on racial equality
that he had up until this point. Obviously that is
not his entire platform, but you know, he was sort
of continuing similar uh, similarly to what his mentor had
and Big Jim Folsom had been elected on a similar
platform in both ninety six and nineteen fifty four. But
(07:17):
Wallace's opponent in the Democratic primary was Attorney General John Patterson.
Patterson was running on a pro segregation platform supported by
the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace, on the other hand, had
the support of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People or n double a CP. The primary went
into a runoff, with Patterson beating Wallace and then beating
(07:40):
the Republican candidate, William Longshore by a landslide. When asked
what had gone wrong, Wallace reportedly told supporters sub version
of the following quote, which uses a slur, that we
are not going to repeat quote I got out and
worded by John Patterson. This is the first and last
time I will be out and worded by another candidate.
(08:04):
This quote and variations on it have been widely reported,
but Wallace would later deny ever, saying it apart from
shifting his politics on race completely, this loss for governor
took a toll on Wallace's personal life. Lorleine, fed up
with his absences and rumors of infidelity and a deep
depression that he went into following the loss, took the
(08:25):
children to her parents house and filed for divorce. George
begged her to come back, and the two eventually reconciled,
and their last child, Jamie Lee, named after Robert E. Lee,
was born. In nineteen sixty one, Wallace returned to his
position in the circuit court, where he turned his attention
to blocking federal efforts as civil rights. When the U.
(08:46):
S Civil Rights Commission requested that he turnover voting records,
he refused to do it and was threatened with prison
for contempt. He wound up turning the records over by
handing them over to grand Juries to turn in on
his behalf so he could say that he had not
personally given the government those records, but he could also
stay out of jail. In nineteen sixty two, Wallace ran
(09:08):
for governor again. This time he took a pro segregation,
pro states rights platform, and, like John Patterson, got the
support of the ku Klux Klan. He won the Democratic
primary after a runoff, and the Republican Party fielded no
candidate at all in the election. Even though he was
running unopposed, he got more than three hundred thousand votes,
(09:29):
more than any candidate in Alabama history at that time.
That infamous Segregation Forever inaugural address was co written by
klansman Asa Carter, who could easily be his own podcast subject,
as he also wrote The Education of Little Tree in
the rebel outlaw Josie Wales under the pseudonym of Forest Carter.
(09:50):
Wallace's first term saw some of the most notorious incidents
of racist violence in the civil rights movement, with critics
blaming Wallace's rhetoric for stoking the fire. And we're going
to talk about it after a quick sponsor break. The
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(11:14):
and enter stuff. Although there were certainly incidents of racial
violence before George Wallace took office in Alabama, and that
violence was not confined just to Alabama, some of the
most infamous incidents in the United States civil rights movement
happened there during his first term. On May two, ninety three,
(11:37):
children began marching from Birmingham sixteenth Street Baptist Church to
City Hall as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conferences
Children's Crusade. That first day, hundreds were arrested. When even
more gathered to march on May three, Birmingham Commissioner of
Public Safety Bull Connor used high pressure fire hoses, police
(11:58):
dogs and clubs to turn them back. This was televised,
and although the march itself was controversial because it put
children in danger, it propelled the movement into the national spotlight.
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed just before the
start of Sunday school on September fifteenth, nineteen sixty three,
killing Addie May Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and Carol
(12:22):
Robertson ages eleven to fourteen. A week before the bombing,
George Wallace had told The New York Times that there
needed to be quote a few first class funerals, so
civil rights activists accused him of creating the climate that
led to the bombing. Dr Martin Luther King Junior wired
him to say, quote, the blood of four little children
(12:42):
is on your hands. You're irresponsible and misguided actions have
created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced
continued violence and now murder. In nineteen sixty three, two
black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, tried to enroll
in the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, which was still segregated,
(13:04):
in spite of the fact that nine years had passed
since the Supreme Court found school segregation unconstitutional in Brown
versus Board of Education. It was also in spite of
the attempt of one other black student, Authoring Lucy, who
attended classes for three days in nineteen fifty six. She
was suspended quote for her own safety because white students
(13:26):
were rioting over her admission, including throwing tomatoes and eggs
at her she threw. She sued the school, which then
used that lawsuit as grounds to expel her permanently. When
Malone and Hood tried to enroll u S, District Judge
Seaborne Lynn forbade Wallace from interfering, but Wallace defied that order.
(13:48):
Flanked by state troopers, he personally blocked the door to
Foster Auditorium, where they were to register for class, until
the National Guard arrived later in the day to intervene
became known as the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, and
it was one of the things that prompted President John F.
Kennedy to push for civil rights legislation. Selma, Alabama, was
(14:11):
also the scene of ongoing non violent civil rights protests
during this time, which were repeatedly met with arrests and
violence on the part of the law enforcement. Many of
these related to voting rights. At the time, discriminatory literacy tests,
poll tax poll taxes, and a flat out refusal to
register black people to vote meant that many black people
could not These protests included a series of marches to
(14:35):
the Selma Courthouse to try to register people to vote,
and eventually to the Selma to Montgomery March, which was
a symbolic march to the state's capitol following activist Jimmy
Lee Jackson being shot and killed by a state trooper
during a march. Jackson was one of several civil rights
activists killed in Alabama during Wallace's administration. Wallace had insisted
(14:57):
that this march would not take place, saying quote such
action will not be allowed on the part of any
other group of citizens or non citizens of the state
of Alabama and will not be allowed in this instance.
The government must proceed in an orderly manner, and lawful
and law abiding citizens must transact their business with the
government in such a manner. There will be no march
between Selma, Alabama, and Montgomery, and I have so instructed
(15:20):
the Department of Public Safety. On what came to be
known as Bloody Sunday, on March seven, several hundred marchers
to Selma tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Under
Wallace's orders to stop the march. State troopers and a
posse assembled by Dallas County share of Jim Clark attacked
the marchers and brutally beat them. Wallace would later say, quote,
(15:44):
it was something that happened that enraged me because I
didn't intend for it to happen that way. But I
didn't want them to get beyond that point where there
was some people that told me there might be some violence. So,
in other words, to prevent the marchers from getting to
somewhere where people were waiting to hurt them, the police
(16:05):
hurt them. The Selma to Montgomery march would be turned
away at the bridge a second time before US District
Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered that the marchers be allowed
to exercise their constitutional rights. Wallace said that Alabama did
not have the resources to protect them, and President Lyndon
Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard and sent military police
(16:27):
and army troops to act as an escort. These Selma
to Montgomery marches raised national awareness of voting rights issues
and contributed directly to President Lyndon Johnson's push for the
Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. This act banned
most of the strategies that had been used to keep
black people from voting. However, in the Supreme Court struck
(16:49):
down one of its provisions, which had required states that
had previously used discriminatory election laws to get federal approval
before changing their election laws. As a result, several states
implemented election laws that the federal government had previously denied
as discriminatory. So we're going to back up just a
(17:11):
little bit, because in nineteen sixty four, Wallace had actually
made his first run at the White House, getting his
name on the ballot in three states, and he didn't
pursue the race aggressively, in part because Republican candidate Barry
Goldwater publicly denounced the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four,
which was basically Wallace's whole platform. Propelled by Goldwater's ultimate
(17:33):
loss in the race, Wallace decided to make a bigger
effort in nineteen sixty eight, but there was a problem.
He'd have far more support in doing so if he
was still governor, but the Alabama constitution did not allow
governors to serve consecutive terms. First, he tried to get
the state legislature to amend the constitution so that he
could run again, but that failed, so instead of admitting defeat,
(17:57):
he put his wife, or Lean, on the ballot with
the intent of basically running things from behind the scenes.
He would basically still have a lot of the perks
that came along with being governor that he could use
as a springboard to run for president again with his
wife actually being the one in office. However, learn Linging
had cancer during the Cesarean delivery of their daughter, Jamie Lee.
(18:21):
In one doctors had found a suspicious mass in her uterus,
and as was common practice at the time, the doctors
told George but not learn Lean, and they left it
up to him whether she should be informed, and George
kept this information from her, saying that he didn't want
to upset her. So four years later in ninety five,
(18:44):
when she went to a gynecologist because she was having
unusual bleeding, she was completely shocked to find that she
had a malignant tumor. In spite of her complete lack
of interest in politics and the in spite of the
fact that she had just undergone hysterectomy and radiation treatments,
which were described to the public as female surgery, Lorline
(19:07):
agreed to run as her husband's stand in. She ran
on a campaign of upholding all of her husband's policies
and his being her number one assistant, and the early
days on the campaign trail, she would start off by
giving a brief prepared remarks before introducing her husband, who
would then basically take it over from there. As she
gradually became more confident in her her speaking skills, she
(19:29):
did start to campaign on her own, and in the
end she beat ten male candidates, some of them former governors,
in the primary. She then won the election by a landslide,
becoming the first woman governor elected in the Deep South.
When her term as governor began, she and George had
offices across the hall from each other, and staff called
(19:50):
them Governor ler Lean and Governor George. She did push
for some initiatives of her own, including legislation related to
state parks and to mental health that ladder following a
were she made of two state institutions whose conditions really
horrified her. During her time in office, the Alabama legislature
also ratified an amendment that would allow governors to serve
(20:10):
consecutive terms, and as promised, she also upheld her husband's
promise to fight integration. In March of nineteen sixty seven,
a federal court ordered that Alabama's schools must be desegregated
in leave versus Macon County Board of Education. This followed
a lengthy series of maneuverings that George Wallace had overseen
(20:32):
during his first term as governor to try to stop integration.
This includes delaying the start of school, stationing troops at
schools to prevent black students from entering, and transferring all
of the white students out of Tuskegee High School after
black students were enrolled there. Following the court order that
came down during Lorline Wallace's time in office, she delivered
(20:55):
an address that stridently denounced this ruling as infringing on
the state's rights, vowing to use state troopers to prevent
integration if necessary. This case then went on to the
Supreme Court in Wallace versus the United States, and the
Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling, at which point
some progress was actually made in desegregating the schools. Lorle
(21:18):
and Wallace was not able, however, to keep up her
duties as governor for long. In July of nineteen sixty seven,
doctors found another tumor in her abdomen, followed by numerous
other tumors the following January. She underwent tests and treatment
at the MD Anderson Clinic in Houston, Texas because there
wasn't a cancer center in Alabama because she was governor,
(21:40):
she had to travel back to Alabama during her treatment
at least once every twenty days. During a lot of
those time, she was in severe pain, and she underwent
multiple operations. This went on until May of nineteen sixty eight,
when she returned home to her family to die, and
she died on May seventh, nineteen sixty eight, at the
age of forty one, after just sixteen months in office.
(22:03):
Her body lay in state in an open casket, something
that her husband ordered in defiance of her wishes at
the Capitol Rotunda. This is the first time anyone had
lain in state there since the nine death of Jefferson Davis,
who had been President of the Confederate States of America.
Her death was met with a huge outpouring of public grief,
with public schools, state offices, and some businesses closing the
(22:25):
day of the funeral, and more than twenty five thousand
people going to the Capital to pay their respects. And
we're gonna next get into Wallace's later career, but first
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nature box dot com slash History. After Luline Wallace's death
in nine she was succeeded by the Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer,
(24:19):
who raised funds for a cancer Center at the University
of Alabama and her memory, and that same year, as
he had been planning to do, George Wallace ran for
president again under the American Independent Party. Wallace got onto
the ballot in every state, and he won five of them,
earning more than ten percent of the popular vote, Although
he dropped some of his most explicit racist language, his
(24:42):
campaign decried the influence of things like liberals, communists, and
the interference of the federal government, leaning on more coded
language to reach out to white voters who were unhappy
with the progress of integration and increasing civil rights for
black people. He ran governor again in nineteen seventy, using
much of the same anti integration platform that had won
(25:05):
him the election in nineteen sixty two, and at times
the nineteen seventy campaign was even more explicit, but once
he was actually in office, he softened his rhetoric. Following
the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the long
work of the Civil rights movement, many of Alabama's black population,
who made up more than a quarter of the states population,
were now registered to vote. Whilist realized that he would
(25:28):
undermine his efforts if he continued to explicitly attack such
a large group of the states voters. In nineteen seventy two,
Whilas once again ran for president, this time as a
Democrat and once again primarily reaching out to disaffected white voters,
decrying forced bussing to integrate schools and welfare loafing, and
(25:49):
advocating quote a return to law and order in an
end to foreign aid programs, especially to communist countries. After
winning the state of Florida, his camp pain looked like
it was set to be a lot more successful than
he had been in nineteen sixty eight. But then, while
he was campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, he was shot by
Arthur Bremer while working the crowd at a rally. Bremer
(26:12):
had previously planned to assassinate Richard Nixon, but had ultimately
never opened fire. While still recuperating, Wallace won the primaries
in Maryland and Michigan as well. However, this injury left
Wallace paralyzed from the waist down, and since he was
hospitalized for months, he was unable to continue his campaign.
(26:33):
He would go on to maintain that he would have
won that presidency had he not been shot. Although his
injury put him out of the presidential race, he ran
for Alabama governor again in nineteen seventy four, since that
amendment to the state constitution that had come through during
Lorline Wallace's administration once again allowed him to do so.
He won for his third term and his second consecutive term,
(26:56):
and he once again spent part of his term as governor.
Again run for president in nineteen seventy six. He won
the states of Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi in the primary,
ultimately losing the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter, who he
endorsed after dropping out of the race, and numerous biographers
describe him as being a lot more interested in campaigning
(27:19):
than in governing. It sure sounds that way. He spends
a lot of his time as governor on the presidential
campaign trail. It's true story. So after his gunshot injury,
and in light of the changing racial politics of the
United States in his later life, George Wallace started reaching
out to the black community and trying to make amends.
Historians and biographers really disagree on whether this attempt was
(27:39):
motivated by a genuine change in views or whether it
was political savvy and a desire not to be remembered
on the wrong side of history. He began to insist
that his hard line segregationist stance was based on the
Constitution and a misreading of the Bible, not on white supremacy.
This does, not, however, quite sink with some of the
(28:01):
quotes that are attributed to him, such as quote the
colored are fine in their place, but they're just like children,
and it's not something that's going to change. It's written
in stone. He also met with several of the still
living civil rights leaders who he had actively worked against,
including the Reverend Ralph the Abernathy, the Reverend Jesse Jackson,
(28:22):
and Representative John Lewis. Lewis had been seriously beaten on
Bloody Sunday during the first Selma to Montgomery March. While
presenting her with the Lurline B. Wallace Award for Courage,
he also praised Vivian Vivian Malone for her quote, strength, grace,
and above all courage during the stand in the schoolhouse door.
(28:43):
In the words of Selma attorney J. L. Chestnut, quoted
in the PBS American Experience production George Wallace set in
the Woods on Fire, which came out in two thousand, quote,
I have no problem for giving George Wallace. I will
not forget George Wallace because we must deal with the
reality of Wallace. How is it that a demagogue insulting
twenty million black people daily on the television can rise
(29:06):
to the heights that Wallace did? Forgive? Yes, forget never.
George Wallace was elected to his last term as governor
in nineteen eighty two in a campaign that actively sought
and received votes from the black community. His win made
him the only person in Alabama history to serve for
four terms, and we took office in nineteen eighty three.
(29:27):
He made it a point to appoint black officials to
government positions. He also became a born again Christian that year.
He retired from that last term in January of nineteen
eighty seven, and he died on September thirteenth of nine
in Montgomery, Alabama. Regardless of whether Wallace's shifts in racial
ideology were genuine or just politically expedient, his methods of
(29:51):
campaigning and his shifting platforms have really had a long
list lasting influence on American politics. Dan T. Carter, a
paper published in the Journal of Southern History in writes Wallace,
more than any other political figure of the nineteen sixties
and early nineteen seventies since the frustrations the rage of
many American voters made commonplace a new level of political
(30:16):
incivility and intemperate rhetoric, and focused that anger upon a
convenient set of scapegoats that was in So that is
George Wallace. Someone asked us, Yeah, somebody asked us on
Twitter one time if we would do a podcast on
Bull Connor, who was the person who turned the fire
(30:36):
hoses on the children's crusade during their march. Uh. I'm
just gonna say, after having done this one, I'm not
that that's gonna be way down the list because it's hard. Yeah. Yeah,
how's your listener mail this time around? Also difficult? It's
not a lighter note. Uh. Justine says, Hello, ladies, I
(30:59):
just got this podcast a year ago and diligently and
a bit obsessively worked my way through the archives and
I'm now caught up. I was so excited to hear
you discussed the Toledo War on one of your recent episodes.
I am from Slash currently live in the lovely state
of Michigan. I'm very glad. I'm just getting around to
sending an email because I heard your Lake correction today. Also,
you referenced the mitten. This is a big deal here
(31:22):
in Michigan. It's how we show people where we live.
My dear husband, who was from Minnesota, was so confused
on the first day at the University of Michigan when
someone held up their right hand and pointed to a
spot on their palm in response to the question where
are you from. In addition to my excitement over the
Michigan references, I also wanted to chime in on the
football discussion. My husband and I are graduates of the
(31:42):
University of Michigan and the rivalry is huge. We refer
to that game as the game, and tensions on campus
run high during that weekend, which is quickly approaching Go Blue.
And then she also throws out some suggestions for Michigan
related history. Thank you how much, Justine. So this made
me giggle because I really thought the whole mitten thing
(32:04):
was something I made up. Um. We also got a
few notes from folks who were like, by your thumb
is not like Eerie, It's like Huron, like in this analogy,
like Huron would be way up by the joint and
(32:24):
like the end of your thumb not found by your
wrist where we're talking about drawing a straight line. So
I was not meant to be a map accurate representation
of the Lower Peninsula. Uh So, anyway, it tickles me
that the thing I was so proud of myself for
coming up with is an analogy, is the thing that
people actually say in the real world. Thank you, Justine.
(32:46):
If you would like to write to us about this
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(33:07):
have all kinds of information about just about anything your
heart desires. If you would like to come to our website,
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(33:28):
that and a whole lot more at how stuff works
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Hi, I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, host of the new house Stuff
Works Now podcast. Every week, I'll be bringing you three
stories from our team about the weird and wondrous developments
we've seen in science, technology, and culture. Fresh episodes will
be out every Monday on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music,
and everywhere else that find podcasts are found. Welcome to
(00:22):
Stuff you Missed in History Class from how Stuff Works
dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tray
c Vee Wilson and I'm Holly Fry. Over the past
few years, Holly, you and I have talked about a
number of prominent figures and moments in the civil rights movement.
(00:43):
That is correct. So we've talked about people like Rosa
Parks and Bird Rustin, and we've talked about Supreme Court
decisions like Brown versus Board and Loving versus Virginia, organizations
like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. But other than
talking sort of obliquely about the laws and practices and
social systems that have enforced segregation and discrimination in the
(01:06):
United States, as well as talking about some specific incidents
of racist violence, like the the destruction of the Greenwood
District in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We've never really talked about the
opposition to that movement, So today we are talking about
one of the most prominent voices against the civil rights
(01:27):
movement and its objectives, Alabama Governor George Wallace, who spent
multiple campaigns for both governor and president on an explicitly
pro segregation platform. In his nineteen sixty three inaugural address
as governor of Alabama, he famously proclaimed segregation today, segregation tomorrow,
segregation forever. So we're going to be talking about violent
(01:49):
retaliation against the civil rights civil rights movement that happened
during his terms in office. And we're also going to
be talking a lot about his first wife, Lorline. He
was married other times, so we're not really getting into
that at all, but we all gonna are going to
talk about Lorelen, whose own story is both tied directly
to her husband's political career and includes a pretty disturbing
(02:12):
account of medical neglect. So George Corley Wallace, Jr. Was
born on August nineteen nineteen in southeastern Alabama, where his
father was a farmer. His political career started very early,
at the age of fifteen, when he served as a
government page at the Alabama State Capitol and made up
(02:32):
his mind to return one day as governor. In his
high school years, he was also a boxer, winning two
state titles in that sport. Wallace studied at the University
of Alabama, paying his tuition by waiting tables and boxing.
He graduated in nineteen thirty seven and then finished his
law degree in nineteen two. That same year, at the
(02:53):
age of twenty four, he met Lorlene Burns, who was
then sixteen, while she was working at a five and
dime in Tuscaloosa. She had graduated from high school early,
and she was working there to try to save up
money to go to nursing school. George was already very
interested in politics, something that didn't really interest Lorline at all,
but they quickly became inseparable. Not long after they met,
(03:15):
Wallace was inducted into the U. S. Army Air Corps
to serve in World War Two. He and Lorline got
marrying on May twenty one, ninety three, while he was
on leave after having contracted meningitis. They spent their honeymoon
in a friend's guest room. Although although George spent a
lot of his time out talking politics while he was
(03:35):
still stateside, Lorline traveled back and forth between her parents
home in Alabama and the air basis where he was stationed.
That's included a trip to New Mexico, which she made
with their five month old daughter, Bobby Joe, only to
find that George had not arranged housing for them on
the base. They wound up needing to stay in a
converted chicken coope. Soon, George would be stationed in the Pacific,
(03:56):
where he flew incendiary missions over Japan until being medically
discharged for severe anxiety in nineteen forty five. In nineteen
forty six, he started actively pursuing a political career. He
became assistant to the state attorney General, and in nineteen
forty seven he was elected to the Alabama State Legislature
as representative for the first of his two terms. During
(04:18):
his campaign, Lorline was the family's sole breadwinner. He was
elected a judge for the Third Judicial Court in nineteen
fifty three, a position that he retained until nineteen fifty eight,
and this job came with enough income for him to
buy a home for the family. Up until this point,
they had been living in a variety of rented rooms
(04:40):
and garage apartments. And his nickname became Fighting Little Judge,
both for his toughness from the bench and his former
time as a boxer while he was in school. Over
the same time, he and Lorline had two more children,
Peggy Sue born in nineteen fifty and George Corley Wallace
the third known as George Jr. In nineteen fifty one.
And Lerline was increasingly frustrated by her husband's devotion to politics,
(05:04):
often to the neglect of his family. At this point
in his career, people were calling George Wallace quote a
dangerous liberal. He was part of charismatic Governor Big Jim
Fulsom's reelection campaign in nineteen fifty three. Folsom was also
Wallace's mentor and in later years would be described as
being way ahead of his time in terms of social
(05:26):
progress and racial equality. Fulsom's positions during his career included
things like voting rights for black people, an end to
prison labor, better schools, funding for roads to make it
easier for farmers to get their crops to market, and
more government positions for women. Much of this, of course,
was an uphill battle and ultimately failed. A lot of
(05:49):
Wallace's policies in the earlier part of his career mostly
mirrored Folsoms. During his two terms in the state legislature,
he drafted legislation to promote vocational schools and attract manufacturing
jobs to Alabama. In ninety eight, when pro segregation Dixiecrats
walked out of the Democratic National Convention, both Wallace and
Folsome stayed put. While in office in the State House
(06:13):
of Representatives, Wallace sponsored a bill that taxed alcohol to
fund trade schools. The Wallace Act, which was signed in
nineteen fifty one and was half of what became known
as the Wallace Cater Acts, allowed municipalities to sell bonds
in order to fund industrial development. This was part of
an effort to bring jobs to Alabama and diversify the
(06:34):
state's economy. Critics called the Wallace Cater Acts socialistic. Another
criticism was that most of the industries that moved into
Alabama through the Acts incentive were low wage, non union
work that paid lower than the national average. In nineteen
fifty eight, Wallace embarked on his first campaign to be
the governor of Alabama. He continued on with the kind
(06:56):
of populist policies and relatively moderate position on racial equality
that he had up until this point. Obviously that is
not his entire platform, but you know, he was sort
of continuing similar uh, similarly to what his mentor had
and Big Jim Folsom had been elected on a similar
platform in both ninety six and nineteen fifty four. But
(07:17):
Wallace's opponent in the Democratic primary was Attorney General John Patterson.
Patterson was running on a pro segregation platform supported by
the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace, on the other hand, had
the support of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People or n double a CP. The primary went
into a runoff, with Patterson beating Wallace and then beating
(07:40):
the Republican candidate, William Longshore by a landslide. When asked
what had gone wrong, Wallace reportedly told supporters sub version
of the following quote, which uses a slur, that we
are not going to repeat quote I got out and
worded by John Patterson. This is the first and last
time I will be out and worded by another candidate.
(08:04):
This quote and variations on it have been widely reported,
but Wallace would later deny ever, saying it apart from
shifting his politics on race completely, this loss for governor
took a toll on Wallace's personal life. Lorleine, fed up
with his absences and rumors of infidelity and a deep
depression that he went into following the loss, took the
(08:25):
children to her parents house and filed for divorce. George
begged her to come back, and the two eventually reconciled,
and their last child, Jamie Lee, named after Robert E. Lee,
was born. In nineteen sixty one, Wallace returned to his
position in the circuit court, where he turned his attention
to blocking federal efforts as civil rights. When the U.
(08:46):
S Civil Rights Commission requested that he turnover voting records,
he refused to do it and was threatened with prison
for contempt. He wound up turning the records over by
handing them over to grand Juries to turn in on
his behalf so he could say that he had not
personally given the government those records, but he could also
stay out of jail. In nineteen sixty two, Wallace ran
(09:08):
for governor again. This time he took a pro segregation,
pro states rights platform, and, like John Patterson, got the
support of the ku Klux Klan. He won the Democratic
primary after a runoff, and the Republican Party fielded no
candidate at all in the election. Even though he was
running unopposed, he got more than three hundred thousand votes,
(09:29):
more than any candidate in Alabama history at that time.
That infamous Segregation Forever inaugural address was co written by
klansman Asa Carter, who could easily be his own podcast subject,
as he also wrote The Education of Little Tree in
the rebel outlaw Josie Wales under the pseudonym of Forest Carter.
(09:50):
Wallace's first term saw some of the most notorious incidents
of racist violence in the civil rights movement, with critics
blaming Wallace's rhetoric for stoking the fire. And we're going
to talk about it after a quick sponsor break. The
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and enter stuff. Although there were certainly incidents of racial
violence before George Wallace took office in Alabama, and that
violence was not confined just to Alabama, some of the
most infamous incidents in the United States civil rights movement
happened there during his first term. On May two, ninety three,
(11:37):
children began marching from Birmingham sixteenth Street Baptist Church to
City Hall as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conferences
Children's Crusade. That first day, hundreds were arrested. When even
more gathered to march on May three, Birmingham Commissioner of
Public Safety Bull Connor used high pressure fire hoses, police
(11:58):
dogs and clubs to turn them back. This was televised,
and although the march itself was controversial because it put
children in danger, it propelled the movement into the national spotlight.
The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was bombed just before the
start of Sunday school on September fifteenth, nineteen sixty three,
killing Addie May Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair, and Carol
(12:22):
Robertson ages eleven to fourteen. A week before the bombing,
George Wallace had told The New York Times that there
needed to be quote a few first class funerals, so
civil rights activists accused him of creating the climate that
led to the bombing. Dr Martin Luther King Junior wired
him to say, quote, the blood of four little children
(12:42):
is on your hands. You're irresponsible and misguided actions have
created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced
continued violence and now murder. In nineteen sixty three, two
black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, tried to enroll
in the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, which was still segregated,
(13:04):
in spite of the fact that nine years had passed
since the Supreme Court found school segregation unconstitutional in Brown
versus Board of Education. It was also in spite of
the attempt of one other black student, Authoring Lucy, who
attended classes for three days in nineteen fifty six. She
was suspended quote for her own safety because white students
(13:26):
were rioting over her admission, including throwing tomatoes and eggs
at her she threw. She sued the school, which then
used that lawsuit as grounds to expel her permanently. When
Malone and Hood tried to enroll u S, District Judge
Seaborne Lynn forbade Wallace from interfering, but Wallace defied that order.
(13:48):
Flanked by state troopers, he personally blocked the door to
Foster Auditorium, where they were to register for class, until
the National Guard arrived later in the day to intervene
became known as the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, and
it was one of the things that prompted President John F.
Kennedy to push for civil rights legislation. Selma, Alabama, was
(14:11):
also the scene of ongoing non violent civil rights protests
during this time, which were repeatedly met with arrests and
violence on the part of the law enforcement. Many of
these related to voting rights. At the time, discriminatory literacy tests,
poll tax poll taxes, and a flat out refusal to
register black people to vote meant that many black people
could not These protests included a series of marches to
(14:35):
the Selma Courthouse to try to register people to vote,
and eventually to the Selma to Montgomery March, which was
a symbolic march to the state's capitol following activist Jimmy
Lee Jackson being shot and killed by a state trooper
during a march. Jackson was one of several civil rights
activists killed in Alabama during Wallace's administration. Wallace had insisted
(14:57):
that this march would not take place, saying quote such
action will not be allowed on the part of any
other group of citizens or non citizens of the state
of Alabama and will not be allowed in this instance.
The government must proceed in an orderly manner, and lawful
and law abiding citizens must transact their business with the
government in such a manner. There will be no march
between Selma, Alabama, and Montgomery, and I have so instructed
(15:20):
the Department of Public Safety. On what came to be
known as Bloody Sunday, on March seven, several hundred marchers
to Selma tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Under
Wallace's orders to stop the march. State troopers and a
posse assembled by Dallas County share of Jim Clark attacked
the marchers and brutally beat them. Wallace would later say, quote,
(15:44):
it was something that happened that enraged me because I
didn't intend for it to happen that way. But I
didn't want them to get beyond that point where there
was some people that told me there might be some violence. So,
in other words, to prevent the marchers from getting to
somewhere where people were waiting to hurt them, the police
(16:05):
hurt them. The Selma to Montgomery march would be turned
away at the bridge a second time before US District
Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered that the marchers be allowed
to exercise their constitutional rights. Wallace said that Alabama did
not have the resources to protect them, and President Lyndon
Johnson federalized the Alabama National Guard and sent military police
(16:27):
and army troops to act as an escort. These Selma
to Montgomery marches raised national awareness of voting rights issues
and contributed directly to President Lyndon Johnson's push for the
Voting Rights Act of nineteen sixty five. This act banned
most of the strategies that had been used to keep
black people from voting. However, in the Supreme Court struck
(16:49):
down one of its provisions, which had required states that
had previously used discriminatory election laws to get federal approval
before changing their election laws. As a result, several states
implemented election laws that the federal government had previously denied
as discriminatory. So we're going to back up just a
(17:11):
little bit, because in nineteen sixty four, Wallace had actually
made his first run at the White House, getting his
name on the ballot in three states, and he didn't
pursue the race aggressively, in part because Republican candidate Barry
Goldwater publicly denounced the Civil Rights Act of nineteen sixty four,
which was basically Wallace's whole platform. Propelled by Goldwater's ultimate
(17:33):
loss in the race, Wallace decided to make a bigger
effort in nineteen sixty eight, but there was a problem.
He'd have far more support in doing so if he
was still governor, but the Alabama constitution did not allow
governors to serve consecutive terms. First, he tried to get
the state legislature to amend the constitution so that he
could run again, but that failed, so instead of admitting defeat,
(17:57):
he put his wife, or Lean, on the ballot with
the intent of basically running things from behind the scenes.
He would basically still have a lot of the perks
that came along with being governor that he could use
as a springboard to run for president again with his
wife actually being the one in office. However, learn Linging
had cancer during the Cesarean delivery of their daughter, Jamie Lee.
(18:21):
In one doctors had found a suspicious mass in her uterus,
and as was common practice at the time, the doctors
told George but not learn Lean, and they left it
up to him whether she should be informed, and George
kept this information from her, saying that he didn't want
to upset her. So four years later in ninety five,
(18:44):
when she went to a gynecologist because she was having
unusual bleeding, she was completely shocked to find that she
had a malignant tumor. In spite of her complete lack
of interest in politics and the in spite of the
fact that she had just undergone hysterectomy and radiation treatments,
which were described to the public as female surgery, Lorline
(19:07):
agreed to run as her husband's stand in. She ran
on a campaign of upholding all of her husband's policies
and his being her number one assistant, and the early
days on the campaign trail, she would start off by
giving a brief prepared remarks before introducing her husband, who
would then basically take it over from there. As she
gradually became more confident in her her speaking skills, she
(19:29):
did start to campaign on her own, and in the
end she beat ten male candidates, some of them former governors,
in the primary. She then won the election by a landslide,
becoming the first woman governor elected in the Deep South.
When her term as governor began, she and George had
offices across the hall from each other, and staff called
(19:50):
them Governor ler Lean and Governor George. She did push
for some initiatives of her own, including legislation related to
state parks and to mental health that ladder following a
were she made of two state institutions whose conditions really
horrified her. During her time in office, the Alabama legislature
also ratified an amendment that would allow governors to serve
(20:10):
consecutive terms, and as promised, she also upheld her husband's
promise to fight integration. In March of nineteen sixty seven,
a federal court ordered that Alabama's schools must be desegregated
in leave versus Macon County Board of Education. This followed
a lengthy series of maneuverings that George Wallace had overseen
(20:32):
during his first term as governor to try to stop integration.
This includes delaying the start of school, stationing troops at
schools to prevent black students from entering, and transferring all
of the white students out of Tuskegee High School after
black students were enrolled there. Following the court order that
came down during Lorline Wallace's time in office, she delivered
(20:55):
an address that stridently denounced this ruling as infringing on
the state's rights, vowing to use state troopers to prevent
integration if necessary. This case then went on to the
Supreme Court in Wallace versus the United States, and the
Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling, at which point
some progress was actually made in desegregating the schools. Lorle
(21:18):
and Wallace was not able, however, to keep up her
duties as governor for long. In July of nineteen sixty seven,
doctors found another tumor in her abdomen, followed by numerous
other tumors the following January. She underwent tests and treatment
at the MD Anderson Clinic in Houston, Texas because there
wasn't a cancer center in Alabama because she was governor,
(21:40):
she had to travel back to Alabama during her treatment
at least once every twenty days. During a lot of
those time, she was in severe pain, and she underwent
multiple operations. This went on until May of nineteen sixty eight,
when she returned home to her family to die, and
she died on May seventh, nineteen sixty eight, at the
age of forty one, after just sixteen months in office.
(22:03):
Her body lay in state in an open casket, something
that her husband ordered in defiance of her wishes at
the Capitol Rotunda. This is the first time anyone had
lain in state there since the nine death of Jefferson Davis,
who had been President of the Confederate States of America.
Her death was met with a huge outpouring of public grief,
with public schools, state offices, and some businesses closing the
(22:25):
day of the funeral, and more than twenty five thousand
people going to the Capital to pay their respects. And
we're gonna next get into Wallace's later career, but first
we're gonna pause for a moment and have a word
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off your first order when you go to nature box
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nature box dot com slash History. After Luline Wallace's death
in nine she was succeeded by the Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer,
(24:19):
who raised funds for a cancer Center at the University
of Alabama and her memory, and that same year, as
he had been planning to do, George Wallace ran for
president again under the American Independent Party. Wallace got onto
the ballot in every state, and he won five of them,
earning more than ten percent of the popular vote, Although
he dropped some of his most explicit racist language, his
(24:42):
campaign decried the influence of things like liberals, communists, and
the interference of the federal government, leaning on more coded
language to reach out to white voters who were unhappy
with the progress of integration and increasing civil rights for
black people. He ran governor again in nineteen seventy, using
much of the same anti integration platform that had won
(25:05):
him the election in nineteen sixty two, and at times
the nineteen seventy campaign was even more explicit, but once
he was actually in office, he softened his rhetoric. Following
the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the long
work of the Civil rights movement, many of Alabama's black population,
who made up more than a quarter of the states population,
were now registered to vote. Whilist realized that he would
(25:28):
undermine his efforts if he continued to explicitly attack such
a large group of the states voters. In nineteen seventy two,
Whilas once again ran for president, this time as a
Democrat and once again primarily reaching out to disaffected white voters,
decrying forced bussing to integrate schools and welfare loafing, and
(25:49):
advocating quote a return to law and order in an
end to foreign aid programs, especially to communist countries. After
winning the state of Florida, his camp pain looked like
it was set to be a lot more successful than
he had been in nineteen sixty eight. But then, while
he was campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, he was shot by
Arthur Bremer while working the crowd at a rally. Bremer
(26:12):
had previously planned to assassinate Richard Nixon, but had ultimately
never opened fire. While still recuperating, Wallace won the primaries
in Maryland and Michigan as well. However, this injury left
Wallace paralyzed from the waist down, and since he was
hospitalized for months, he was unable to continue his campaign.
(26:33):
He would go on to maintain that he would have
won that presidency had he not been shot. Although his
injury put him out of the presidential race, he ran
for Alabama governor again in nineteen seventy four, since that
amendment to the state constitution that had come through during
Lorline Wallace's administration once again allowed him to do so.
He won for his third term and his second consecutive term,
(26:56):
and he once again spent part of his term as governor.
Again run for president in nineteen seventy six. He won
the states of Alabama, South Carolina, and Mississippi in the primary,
ultimately losing the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter, who he
endorsed after dropping out of the race, and numerous biographers
describe him as being a lot more interested in campaigning
(27:19):
than in governing. It sure sounds that way. He spends
a lot of his time as governor on the presidential
campaign trail. It's true story. So after his gunshot injury,
and in light of the changing racial politics of the
United States in his later life, George Wallace started reaching
out to the black community and trying to make amends.
Historians and biographers really disagree on whether this attempt was
(27:39):
motivated by a genuine change in views or whether it
was political savvy and a desire not to be remembered
on the wrong side of history. He began to insist
that his hard line segregationist stance was based on the
Constitution and a misreading of the Bible, not on white supremacy.
This does, not, however, quite sink with some of the
(28:01):
quotes that are attributed to him, such as quote the
colored are fine in their place, but they're just like children,
and it's not something that's going to change. It's written
in stone. He also met with several of the still
living civil rights leaders who he had actively worked against,
including the Reverend Ralph the Abernathy, the Reverend Jesse Jackson,
(28:22):
and Representative John Lewis. Lewis had been seriously beaten on
Bloody Sunday during the first Selma to Montgomery March. While
presenting her with the Lurline B. Wallace Award for Courage,
he also praised Vivian Vivian Malone for her quote, strength, grace,
and above all courage during the stand in the schoolhouse door.
(28:43):
In the words of Selma attorney J. L. Chestnut, quoted
in the PBS American Experience production George Wallace set in
the Woods on Fire, which came out in two thousand, quote,
I have no problem for giving George Wallace. I will
not forget George Wallace because we must deal with the
reality of Wallace. How is it that a demagogue insulting
twenty million black people daily on the television can rise
(29:06):
to the heights that Wallace did? Forgive? Yes, forget never.
George Wallace was elected to his last term as governor
in nineteen eighty two in a campaign that actively sought
and received votes from the black community. His win made
him the only person in Alabama history to serve for
four terms, and we took office in nineteen eighty three.
(29:27):
He made it a point to appoint black officials to
government positions. He also became a born again Christian that year.
He retired from that last term in January of nineteen
eighty seven, and he died on September thirteenth of nine
in Montgomery, Alabama. Regardless of whether Wallace's shifts in racial
ideology were genuine or just politically expedient, his methods of
(29:51):
campaigning and his shifting platforms have really had a long
list lasting influence on American politics. Dan T. Carter, a
paper published in the Journal of Southern History in writes Wallace,
more than any other political figure of the nineteen sixties
and early nineteen seventies since the frustrations the rage of
many American voters made commonplace a new level of political
(30:16):
incivility and intemperate rhetoric, and focused that anger upon a
convenient set of scapegoats that was in So that is
George Wallace. Someone asked us, Yeah, somebody asked us on
Twitter one time if we would do a podcast on
Bull Connor, who was the person who turned the fire
(30:36):
hoses on the children's crusade during their march. Uh. I'm
just gonna say, after having done this one, I'm not
that that's gonna be way down the list because it's hard. Yeah. Yeah,
how's your listener mail this time around? Also difficult? It's
not a lighter note. Uh. Justine says, Hello, ladies, I
(30:59):
just got this podcast a year ago and diligently and
a bit obsessively worked my way through the archives and
I'm now caught up. I was so excited to hear
you discussed the Toledo War on one of your recent episodes.
I am from Slash currently live in the lovely state
of Michigan. I'm very glad. I'm just getting around to
sending an email because I heard your Lake correction today. Also,
you referenced the mitten. This is a big deal here
(31:22):
in Michigan. It's how we show people where we live.
My dear husband, who was from Minnesota, was so confused
on the first day at the University of Michigan when
someone held up their right hand and pointed to a
spot on their palm in response to the question where
are you from. In addition to my excitement over the
Michigan references, I also wanted to chime in on the
football discussion. My husband and I are graduates of the
(31:42):
University of Michigan and the rivalry is huge. We refer
to that game as the game, and tensions on campus
run high during that weekend, which is quickly approaching Go Blue.
And then she also throws out some suggestions for Michigan
related history. Thank you how much, Justine. So this made
me giggle because I really thought the whole mitten thing
(32:04):
was something I made up. Um. We also got a
few notes from folks who were like, by your thumb
is not like Eerie, It's like Huron, like in this analogy,
like Huron would be way up by the joint and
(32:24):
like the end of your thumb not found by your
wrist where we're talking about drawing a straight line. So
I was not meant to be a map accurate representation
of the Lower Peninsula. Uh So, anyway, it tickles me
that the thing I was so proud of myself for
coming up with is an analogy, is the thing that
people actually say in the real world. Thank you, Justine.
(32:46):
If you would like to write to us about this
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stuffworks dot com. We're also on Facebook at Facebook dot
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dot com, or on Pinterest at pitchest dot com slash
miss and histor. Our instagram is at missed in history.
Uh If you would like to come to our parent
company's website, which is how stuff works dot com, they
(33:07):
have all kinds of information about just about anything your
heart desires. If you would like to come to our website,
which is missed in History dot com, you will find
show notes for this and all the other episodes Holly
and I have done together, as well as an archive
of every single episode we have ever worked on. We
have just published our first original video to that website,
so new things on the horizon. You can do all
(33:28):
that and a whole lot more at how stuff works
dot com or missed in history dot com for more
onness and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff
works dot com.
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Holly Frey
Tracy Wilson
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