John M. Patterson, Segregationist Alabama Governor, Dies at 99
He welcomed the Klan and refused to integrate schools, forging a path that would be followed by Gov. George C. Wallace.
Gov. John M. Patterson at his office in Montgomery, Ala., in 1961. He was the youngest governor in Alabama history, serving only one term.Credit.Horace Cort/Associated Press
June 5, 2021, 7:48 p.m. ET
John M. Patterson, a defiant segregationist who defeated and preceded George C. Wallace as the governor of Alabama as the South plunged into the violence and turmoil of the civil rights movement in the late 1950s and ’60s, died on Friday at his home in Goldville, Ala. He was 99.