George Corley Wallace, Jr. (25 August 1919 – 13 September 1998) was the Democratic governor of Alabama from 1963 to 1967 (succeeding John Malcolm Patterson and preceding Lurleen Wallace), from 1971 to 1979 (succeeding Albert Brewer and preceding Fob James, and from 1983 to 1987 (succeeding Fob James and preceding H. Guy Hunt), as well as a presidential candidate for the Democrats in 1964, 1972, and 1976 and for the American Independent Party in 1968. Wallace was well-known as a populist, staunch conservative, and a convinced segregationist, and he was the last third-party candidate to win a state during the United States presidential elections.
Biography[]
George Corley Wallace, Jr. was born on 25 August 1919 in Clio, Alabama, United States. Wallace served in the US Air Force during the bombing of Japan at the end of World War II, serving under his future presidential running mate Curtis LeMay. In 1945, he became an assistant to the Attorney General of Alabama, and he was elected to the Alabama House of Representatives in May 1946 as a US Democratic Party member. Wallace became a circuit judge in 1952, and he refused to take down segregation signs in rail terminals, becoming the first southern judge to do so; he became a voice of the reactionary Southern Democrats. In 1963, he won the gubernatorial election, and his inaugural speech included his famous words, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." On 11 June 1963, he stood in front of the doors to the Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama, hoping to prevent two African-American students from entering the recently desegregated school. He would fail in his 1964 presidential campaign, and his wife Lurleen Wallace would serve as Alabama governor from 1967 until her 1968 death.
Presidential nominee[]
Life Magazine's picture of a wounded Wallace on 15 May 1972
In 1968, Wallace decided to run for President of the United States as the American Independent Party's presidential nominee, with Curtis LeMay as his vice-presidential running mate. Wallace would return to the Democrats after the failed presidential campaign, and he attempted to become the Democratic nominee in the 1972 primaries. However, he was nearly assassinated by crazed gunman Arthur Bremer at a campaign rally in Wheaton, Maryland on 15 May 1972, being shot five times with a revolver. Wallace was paralyzed from the waist down, and his presidential campaign came to an end after the assassination attempt. In 1976, he won South Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi during the presidential primaries, but he failed to win the nomination. Around this time, he would become a born-again Christian and disavow his previous racist views, although he remained a convinced populist. From 1971 to 1979 and from 1983 to 1987, he would serve three terms as Governor of Alabama, retiring from politics after leaving office in 1987. Wallace died in Montgomery, Alabama on 13 September 1998 at the age of 79.