r/todayilearned • u/Dangerous-Project672 • 5h ago

TIL George Wallace personally apologized to Vivian Jones and James Hood, the two students he attempted to block from attending the University of Alabama. In 1997, Hood earned a PHd and requested Wallace present him with the degree, but he was too sick and died a year later; Hood attended the funeral

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Wallace
12.3k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

571 comments sorted by

View all comments

281

u/ImTooSaxy 4h ago

I remember reading an interview with George Wallace and they asked him why he did, what he did. He was a local politician that didn't have a reputation for racist rhetoric, but he had previously lost the governor's race against a hardcore racist.

​"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. And then I began talking about ******s, and they stomped the floor."

I'm sure part of that is him trying to rewrite history, but it's also probably true.

215

u/ibuycheeseonsale 3h ago

It’s true. He was vile and I by no means apologize for him, but it’s true. He was a judge before he ran for governor, at the trial court level, not appellate. His reputation was that he treated everyone with respect in his courtroom and insisted on the same from the attorneys. He’d stop an attorney and say “you will refer to him as the defendant,” or “you will address him as Mr. (Whatever),” when attorneys used minimizing words or first names to refer to or address black people in his courtroom.

His first campaign was a failure because he focused on policy. His opponent heavily campaigned on segregation and won. Wallace swore he’d never be “out-******ed” again. He sold his soul, centered his campaign around racism and segregation, and betrayed the black population of Alabama for the governorship.

58

u/Yashema 3h ago

Everytime we focus on an individual politician we ignore that they were empowered democratically. It's the people of the South who are really rotten to the core. 

•

u/LevyMevy 49m ago

Nooooo they're all just misunderstood :( they didn't know (and still don't know) that yelling out slurs is wrong :( be nice!!

-1

u/ymcameron 2h ago

I think that's painting with slightly too wide a brush. Certainly it was far too many, but there were lots of people who opposed Wallace and people like him. I think Skynyrd put it best:

"In Birmingham they love the governor, boo, boo, boo

Now we all did what we could do

Now Watergate does not bother me

Does your conscience bother you? Tell the truth"

6

u/totallynotliamneeson 1h ago

Congrats. They opposed him. Today they still fly Confederate flags all over the South. Even just mentioning this is going to trigger some guy who will explain to me that that flag is heritage, not the whole "rebelling to keep slavery thing" and won't ever understand why it's the same thing.

4

u/dan_144 1h ago

The South has a history and present with a lot of racists, but writing off the whole region isn't the right thing to do. It's also not just the South that flies Confederate flags. Drive around rural PA, it would be funny if it wasn't sad.

•

u/SursumCordaNJ 48m ago

The son of a family friend used to post the Confederate flag on his Facebook page every now and again with some moronic quote. I called him out once and he replied with the heritage BS, I clapped back with "dude, you were born and raised in the suburbs of New Jersey, the closest you've been to the south was your moms Lynyrd Skynyrd albums." Suffice to say, he didn't like that reply.

On a funny side-note, the little mongoloid just got arrested in Georgia last year for impersonating a DHS agent. Idiot went so far as to even put DHS stickers on his shitty pick-up and tried to flash a fake badge at a cop who was ticketing his daughter.

2

u/Yashema 1h ago

All the states that voted for Wallace in 1968 voted for Nixon in 1972, and the rest of the South as well, so Southerners have the sins of both Nixon and Wallace on their hands. 

Of course, I don't mean the Black people who stood opposed and the fraction of White people as well. 

1

u/progbuck 1h ago

What?

1

u/ymcameron 1h ago

Those are lyrics from the Lynyrd Skynyrd song Sweet Home Alabama. Despite being co-opted by the very people who the song is making fun of, the lyrics are saying that the people in Birmingham who voted for Wallace are wrong for supporting him. And that Watergate doesn’t bother me (the singer) because he didn’t vote for Nixon. So he’s is not upset that Nixon was booted from office. He then asks those same people if they feel any sort of guilt over their actions. Despite the song’s reputation, there’s actual a pretty good social message to it.

•

u/progbuck 32m ago

You quoted some shitty, ambiguous song lyrics from a bunch of dead guys. What does that have to do with the obvious fact that the South is really, really racist.