Huntingdon College Political Science Program
PSC 212: American Policy System
George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire. (video)
Index of Documents.
compiled by Jeremy Lewis, PhD; Last revised 28 July '02.
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Program Transcript, Part 1. from
PBS.org [Local]
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/transcript/index.html
Program Transcript, Part 2. from
PBS.org [Local]
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/transcript/transcript1.html
Bibliography [Below]
Remembering Wallace (Newshour) Extract [Below]
Wallace's 1968 American Independent Party
Platform, from PBS.org [Local]
from PBS.org
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/reference/primary/68platform.html
1958 gubernatorial campaign of George Wallace
[Local]
from PBS.org
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/reference/primary/1958gub.html
Wallace's Retirement Speech, from
PBS.org [Local]
from PBS.org
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/reference/primary/86retire.html
Web Sites
Alabama Live/The "Birmingham News. "George Wallace: 1919-1998." Sept.
14, 1998. [Expired]
http://www.al.com/specialreport/wallace/
Online Newshour: "Remembering George Wallace," September 14, 1998.
[Local Extract]
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/july-dec98/wallace_9-14.html
George Wallace's Appointment in Laurel," Time, May 29, 1972.
[Local]
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9605/29/index.shtml
"In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this
earth, I draw a line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the
feet of tyranny and I say segregation now, segregation
tomorrow, and segregation forever!"
– George Wallace, 1963
To many, George Wallace was the embodiment of racism in
America. To others, he was a champion of Southern pride and
a defender of the working class. He rose to power as the
nation’s best-known segregationist in the early 1960s, but later in his
career he was
elected governor of Alabama with overwhelming black support. A Golden Gloves
fighter, he battled his way into the national spotlight and came close
to deadlocking
the 1968 presidential election as a third-party candidate -- then was shot
down by a
would-be assassin on the eve of his greatest political victory. Wallace
would spend
his remaining years seeking redemption for the divisiveness he had once
preached and
asking forgiveness from those he had scorned, but he left a conservative
political
legacy that continues to influence national politics today.
Winner of the Sundance 2000 Film Festival Special Jury Prize, "George Wallace:
Settin’ the Woods on Fire" is produced by Paul Stekler and Dan McCabe and
written
by Steve Fayer ("Eyes on the Prize," "Vote for Me," "Rock & Roll,"
"Nixon"). The
three-hour PBS special places the public and private George Wallace within
the
turbulent history of the 1960s and 1970s, tracing a powerful story relevant
to
today’s presidential politics.
Privately, it is the saga of a onetime progressive Alabama politician who
makes a
devil’s bargain to become Governor -- and finds his new position on race
can propel
him to power he has never imagined. Politically, it is the story of the
man at the
middle of the transformation of American politics, from the New Deal Democratic
majority to the Reagan revolution -- a transformation that can be traced
through the
social issues introduced into national politics by George Wallace. As Pat
Buchanan,
the Nixon speechwriter who recognized the potential in Wallace’s issues,
says: "He
has never gotten the credit for being the figure he was and having the
influence he did
upon subsequent politics."
George, Jr.
Governor of Alabama for twenty years and a
four-time presidential candidate, Wallace helped
change the face of American politics -- and led a life
of almost Shakespearian proportions. His story is
told through interviews with Wallace’s family,
including his wife, Cornelia, daughter, Peggy, and
son, George, Jr., as well as close friends, colleagues,
journalists who covered his career, and civil rights leaders who opposed
him. The
program also includes revelations from the diary of the man who shot him,
Arthur
Bremer, and from the Nixon White House.
Born in 1919 in rural south Alabama, George Wallace was raised in tiny
Barbour
County, birthplace of five other Alabama governors. He caught the political
bug
early, becoming a Senate page at fifteen. After graduating from the University
of
Alabama and serving in the Air Force in World War II, Wallace began the
climb that
would take him from state representative to circuit court judge to the
1958 race for
governor. Running as a moderate alternative to John Patterson, his race-baiting
opponent, Wallace was soundly defeated. Stung deeply by his first political
loss, he
vowed to win the next governor’s race with a new strategy: unbridled support
of
segregation. Within months, he was back in the headlines.
Before setting off for war, Wallace fell in love with
Lurleen Burns, a young dimestore clerk. They
married and began a family, but Wallace was rarely
at home, instead preferring the campaign trail. His
tireless campaigning became a lifelong political trait
and a familial liability. "He was always gone,"
recalls daughter Peggy Wallace Kennedy.
Peggy
Wallace entered the 1962 campaign for governor as the most defiantly
pro-segregation candidate on the ticket. He won easily and, during his
inaugural
address, made the pronouncement on segregation that would mark him for
life.
"One of his supporters, who was horrified, came up to him after his speech
and said,
‘George, why are you doing this?’" recalls Wallace biographer Dan Carter.
"And
Wallace, sadly he thought, said, ‘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.’"
In the months that followed he kept a campaign promise to prevent school
integration by standing in the schoolhouse door of the University of Alabama
before
a swarm of reporters and television news cameras. "That defiant little
guy standing
there," remembers longtime "Montgomery Advertiser" journalist, Bob Ingram,
"that
pugnacious glaring expression, the chin thrust out -- he personified Southern
resistance to racial integration."
Despite civil rights marches and violence in Alabama, the national exposure
from the
schoolhouse stand brought Wallace a measure of acclaim, encouraging him
to enter a
few presidential primaries in 1964. His vigorous defense of states’ rights
and
opposition to the pending Civil Rights Bill in the U.S. Congress resonated
with many
voters outside of the South, and Wallace’s campaign easily outperformed
the dire
predictions of his opponents.
In 1966, barred from running for reelection as governor by the Alabama
constitution,
Wallace convinced Lurleen to run in his place. She assured voters that
her husband
would be her "number-one assistant" and that his programs would continue
under her
watch. The decision to run was harder than the Wallaces let on: Lurleen
had been
diagnosed with cancer. She won in a landslide, only to die in the middle
of her term.
Wallace was devastated, but returned to his presidential campaign after
just a few
weeks of mourning.
Wallace’s third-party presidential campaign nearly threw the 1968 election
before the
US. Congress. A change in Alabama state law allowed him to run for Governor
again,
and in 1971 he returned to power. He had married a former beauty queen,
Cornelia
Ellis Snively, two weeks earlier. He used the governorship to stay in the
public eye,
announcing to the national press that he’d always been a moderate and no
longer
believed in racial segregation. He courted the black vote he had formerly
despised,
trying to build a new image as a presidential candidate. In 1972 he ran
as a Democrat,
upsetting the political establishment by winning the most primary votes
of any
candidate. A Gallup poll of America’s most admired men showed Wallace in
seventh
place -- just ahead of the Pope. All was going well for George Corley Wallace
-- until
five bullets stopped him and his national aspirations cold.
J. L. Chestnut
Campaigning from a wheelchair, Wallace was
reelected governor twice more and made a fourth,
half-hearted run for the presidency only to be
trounced by a fellow Southerner, Jimmy Carter.
After the shooting, Wallace’s life changed. His
marriage to Cornelia crumbled. Out of office and
often alone, he began to call his old enemies, asking
their forgiveness. In time, he gained the political support of Alabama’s
growing
African American electorate. He had come full circle in his career. "I
have no problem
forgiving George Wallace," says J. L. Chestnut, a black attorney from Selma.
"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 to the heights that Wallace did? Forgive? Yes. Forget? Never."
Books
Bremer, Arthur H. "An Assassin's Diary." New York: Harper's Magazine Press,
1973.
Carter, Dan T. "The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, The Origins of the
New
Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics." Baton Rouge:
Louisiana State University Press, 2000.
Healey, Thomas S. "The Two Deaths of George Wallace: The Question of
Forgiveness." Montgomery: Black Belt Press, 1996.
Horwitz, Tony. "Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished
Civil
War." New York: Pantheon Books, 1998.
Lesher, Stephan. "George Wallace: American Populist." Reading, Mass.:
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1994.
Wallace, George C. "Hear Me Out." Anderson, S.C.: Droke House, Publishers,
1968.
"Stand Up for America." New York: Doubleday & Company., Inc., 1976.
Washington, James Melvin, ed. "A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings
and
Speeches of Martin Luther King, Jr." New York: HarperCollins Publishers,
1991.
Williams, Juan. "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years, 1954-1965."
Penguin Books, 1987.
Web Sites
Alabama Live/The "Birmingham News. "George Wallace: 1919-1998." Sept. 14,
1998.
http://www.al.com/specialreport/wallace/
Online Newshour: "Remembering George Wallace," September 14, 1998.
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/remember/july-dec98/wallace_9-14.html
George Wallace's Appointment in Laurel," Time, May 29, 1972.
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/back.time/9605/29/index.shtml
The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript [Brief extract]
KWAME HOLMAN: George Wallace first earned a
national reputation in 1963 with these words during his first inaugural
address as the Democratic
governor of Alabama. A few months later, the
nation watched as Governor Wallace made good on his promise to stand in
the schoolhouse door to
oppose the federally ordered desegregation
of Alabama's public schools, including the University of Alabama. His fiery
opposition to racial integration
and voting rights for blacks, mixed with his
support for state's rights in the face of federal intervention, made him
a popular figure across the South.
Wallace saw his populist message achieve wide
resonance during a second run for the presidency in 1968. Heading his own
American Independent
Party, Wallace took 13 percent of the vote
and carried five southern states. Four year later, running this time as
a Democrat, Wallace was considered a
strong contender to win the party's nomination.
But a day before the Maryland primary, a routine campaign rally changed
his life forever. Arthur
Bremer, a 21-year-old drifter with no apparent
political motives, shot Wallace five times. Wallace survived but was paralyzed
permanently from the
waist down. In 1976, a sickly Wallace repudiated
racial intolerance and apologized for his past, as he began a third run
for President. But he polled
poorly and ultimately dropped out. When Wallace
was elected to an historic fourth term as Alabama's governor in 1982, it
was with significant black
support. He would go on to appoint blacks
to his administration. ...
KWAME HOLMAN: Wallace retired in 1987, saying
the pain and constant hospitalizations that were the legacy of the assassination
attempt were too
much. ...
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