Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, May 15, 1994 TAG: 9405080145
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by DAN L. FREI
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
There is no doubt that George Corley Wallace will be forever remembered by the American people as a racist. His use of racist dogma in the development of his political image is undeniable.
"The repeated suggestions that blacks were inferior, the incessant tone of self-righteousness and pomposity, the unrelieved know-nothingism, the misuse of language, the mis-spellings, the grammatical errors, and the frequent claims that he was a victim of `a nationwide campaign of character assassination,' were more than enough to stigmatize Wallace as a dedicated racist and, worse, as an ignorant and irrational man. He was neither - but the perception dogged Wallace throughout his national political career."
Stephan Lesher's new biography makes the assertion that George Wallace was a complex and misunderstood politician who became a prominent player on the national political scene because he used the issue of segregation as an example of a "constitutional crisis in this country," or what he considered an intolerable intrusion of the Federal Government into the affairs of his state.
"We are God-fearing people," declared Wallace when he defied the federally forced integration of the University of Alabama, "not government-fearing people. There can be no submission to the theory that the central government is anything but a servant of the people." In his home state of Alabama, George Wallace was considered a sovereign. His actions and oratory added to the atmosphere of hate. Compiled with impressive research and more than
60 hours of interviews with the subject, "despite his continuing serious infirmities," this history describes George Wallace as "the most influential loser in modern American politics." Lesher suggests that "every successful presidential campaign from 1968 through 1992 was founded on popular issues and rhetoric first identified and articulated by Wallace."
"Wallace became the dominant and most important issue maker of this time because of his political instincts, his sense of theater, his overpowering energy and magnetism, and his single-minded dedication to vote getting. Indeed, governance and personal concerns held far less interest for him than pressing the flesh. For George Wallace, the act of campaigning was life itself."
Using segregation as sustenance for his avid states rights position, Wallace made nationwide headlines with his battle against the intrusion of the federal government into the white dominated social formulas of Alabama and the segregated South. Wallace would point with ridicule to the
"highpocrisy" of northern cities, northern institutions, and even to the Justice Department itself, for their practices of racial exclusion. His calls for "law 'n order," his concerns for traditional values, for judicial conservatism, and for government attention to waste reduction, welfare reform, and to the beleaguered middle class, were forebodings of rhetoric to come in later years from politicians from all sides of the spectrum.
In "Parting the Waters, America in the King Years," author Taylor Branch noted of Wallace: "His stand against Washington and do-gooder bureaucrats planted a conservative standard which, further rinsed of overtly racial content, came to dominate American politics for more than a generation."
It is clear, however, that Wallace did not merely use the issue of racism for political gain. There are many, myself included, who saw the term "federal intervention" as code words with a definite racist connotation. Although in later life he publicly renounced his segregationist past and made efforts to expand opportunities for Alabama's black citizens, there is no doubt that in the late '50s and '60s, George Wallace fueled the fires of those who hated, and in doing so, encouraged the atmosphere of violence and repression against civil rights advocates.
Although this book does not apologize for George Wallace, it is kind to him. During a recent political campaign, I got to know one of the men who had been close to Wallace in the '60s. I'm sure he would say Wallace was well intentioned. This biography, however, is not enough to convince me.
\ Dan L. Frei is a Roanoke-based political consultant.
by CNB