George Wallace :: essays papers

George WallaceFormer Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama, who built his political careeron segregation and spent a tormented retirement arguing that he was not aracist in his heart, died Sunday night at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery.He was 79 and lived in Montgomery, Ala. Wallace died of respiratory and cardiac arrest at 949 p.m., said DanaBeyerly, a spokeswoman for Jackson Hospital in Montgomery. Wallace had been in declining health since being shot in his 1972presidential campaign by a 21-year-old drifter named Arthur Bremer. Wallace, a Democrat who was a longtime champion of states rights, reign his own state for almost a generation. But his wish was to beremembered as a man who might have been president and whose campaigns forthat office in 1968, 1972 and 1976 established political trends that havedominated American politics for the last quarter of the 20th century. He believed that his underdog campaigns made it possible for two other(a)Southerners, open up Carter and Bill Cli nton, to be taken seriously aspresidential candidates. He also argued ceaselessly that his theme ofmiddle-class empowerment was borrowed by Richard Nixon in 1968 and thereforegrabbed by another Californian, Ronald Reagan, as the spine of histriumphant populist conservatism. In interviews later in his life, Wallace was always less keen to talkabout his other major role in Southern history. After being elected to hisfirst term as g all overnor in 1962, he became the foil for the immense proteststhat the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. used to destroy segregation inpublic accommodations in 1963 and to secure voting rights for blacks in1965. As a young man, Wallace came stewing out of the sun-stricken,Rebel-haunted reaches of southeast Alabama to win the governorship on hissecond try. He became the only Alabamian ever sworn in for four terms asgovernor, sweet elections in 1962, 1970, 1974 and 1982. He retired atthe end of his last term in January 1987. So great was his sway over Ala bama that by the time he had been in officeonly two years, other candidates literally begged him for permission toput his slogan, Stand Up for Alabama, on their billboards. Sens. JohnSparkman and Lister Hill, New moot veterans who were powers in Washingtonand the national Democratic Party, feared to contradict him in public whenhe vowed to plunge the state into unrelenting confrontation with thefederal government over the integration of schools, buses, restrooms andpublic places in Alabama. It was a power built entirely on his promise to Alabamas white voting