Difference between revisions of "George Wallace"

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George Wallace (1919 - 1998) was a pro-segregationist governor of Alabama. He gained national attention by "standing in the schoolhouse door" to stop the integration of Alabama schools (then he stepped aside). He ran unsuccessfully for president four times, three times seeking the Democratic party nomination, (1964, 1972, 1976), and once running as an independent (1968). He carried blue collar white southerners and rural white southerners in the United States presidential election, 1968, but his appeal to blue collar northern Democrats was blunted by labor unions who vehemently attacked him as a dangerous and reckless racist demagogue.

Later life

An assassination attempt in 1972 by Arthur Bremer left him partially disabled. In the late 1970s Wallace became a born-again Christian, renouncing his segregationist policies and apologizing for his past. After his change, he became popular within the African American community, a position of closeness that he would retain until his death.

Time Oct 18, 1968; Air Force General Curtis LeMay was Wallace's VP nominee

Further reading

• Lesher, Stephan. George Wallace: American Populist. (1994). 587 pp.
• Time. "Wallace's Army: The Coalition Of Frustration," Time Oct 18, 1968

See also

• Scottsboro case