Lewis discuss the life and legacy of wallace. They look at whether political concerns or racism motivated wallace to oppose integration. This event took place at the Birmingham Public Library in birmingham, alabama. Its about 90 minutes. In birmingham, they love the governor. This line from Lynyrd Skynyrds 1974 song sweet home alabama may be one of the most debated lines from one of the most debated songs in american music. George wallace was so taken with the song when he first heard it that he planned to issue a special gubernatorial citation to lynyrd skynyrd. But then one of the governors aides suggest he listen more closely to the line that follows in birmingham they love the governor. The next line anybody remember . Boo, boo, boo. Sung by a group of female africanamerican backup singers. Including, by the way, the great mary clayton who originated the role of the acid queen in the wh whos tommy. That has nothing to do with what were talking about tonight. I just think thats a cool fact. So they never got this citation from the governor. We have chosen this line as the title of our program tonight because it is like the legacy of George Wallace debated and still relevant in the 21st century america. We are fortunate to have three respected and accomplished scholars with us tonight to explore the role of George Wallace in birmingham civil rights struggle and the legacy of wallace in our politics and culture today. Our first speaker will be dan t. Carter. He has served as professor and visiting scholar at emory university, university of maryland, university of wisconsin, londons westminster university, cambridge university, university of genera and the university of south carolina. His book, scottsboro won the prize and the smith book award. He is the author of the highly regarded biography the politics of rage George Wallace, the origins of the new conservatism and the transformation of american politics. Our second speaker will be dr. Glen t. Eskew. He is professor of history at Georgia State university. Birmingham native. He is author of the book but for birmingham the local and National Movements in the civil rights struggle, which received the Frances Butler simkins prize at the Southern Historical association, and he aauthor of the forthcoming book Johnny Mercer southern songwriter for the world. For the past several years, dr. Eskew has served as lecturer and faculty director for annual neh funded teacher workshops on teaching the history of the Civil Rights Movement. Our final speaker this evening will be dr. Angela k. Lewis, professor of Political Science in the department of government at the university of alabama at birmingham. She is author of the new book conservatism in the black community, to the right and misunderstood. And awards will be forthcoming. Also a native of birmingham, dr. Lewis is a regular political analyst for cox radio and alabama public radio and works with the organization am ba bam s alabama citizens for constitutional reform. Please join me in welcoming dr. Dan carter. Thank you very much, jim. Im sure most of you here are aware of what an extraordinary resource and the rare one is the Birmingham Public Library and the archives here. Unfortunately, libraries across the country are losing the kind of resources to local history and for national history, and were fortunate to have such an extraordinary facility here in birmingham. I hope youre proud of it. You should be. When i sat down to write a biography of George Wallace, i was taken with the words of the english biographer james basel as he wrote to his friend samuel johnson. Hearts are concealed, but their actions are open to scrutiny. I still believe that. We can never know with certainty the inner thoughts, the feelings of individuals, but i do think we can infer motivation from action. And so id like to talk briefly about the role of George Wallace and the events that stretched from january of 1963 through the 16th street bombing. What George Wallace did and why he acted as he did. I hope these brief reflections will tell us something about him and about the larger story of that critical year in the history of birmingham and the history of our nation. As all of us well know, George Wallace began the year in 1963 with his inaugural address in which he promised segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. And at the same time, reaffirmed his Campaign Commitment to stand in the schoolhouse door to resist federally mandated integration. Wallace was no novice when it came to managing the media as he began his governorship. But he was most focused on his forthcoming confrontation to the Kennedy Administration over his promise to stand in the schoolhouse door. This was an event that he could control, and he did so with extraordinary skill. In part, because it was always, for governor wallace, a political chess match that gave him a kind of distance, i think, emotionally from what was going on. Privately, he concluded that it would be a mistake to let events slip out of control and lead to a repeat of the rights and bloodshed of ole miss the previous fall. And so he used his close contacts with a plan and other violent routes to persuade them to fall back and let him take the lead. But to use a cliche, he kept his cards close to his chest. Only his very closest advisers knew his plans. And publicly, he kept a frustrated Robert John Kennedy guessing about what he might do, even hinting at times that he would support armed resistance to desegregation. Nevertheless, while the negotiations were stilted and frustrating to the president and attorney general robert kennedy, whatever wallace and his close supporters said privately, they were scrupulously polite in public comments. Meeting with attorney general kennedy in may of 1963, ive heard the tape of that meeting, and it was contentious, often angry, intense, but as soon as they stepped outside for a press conference, the governor was very sole in graciousness, explaining how he had welcomed the attorney general to alabama, the hospitality state, and he was always welcomed back. For George Wallace, it was great fun. Like a highlevel poker game in which he ultimately held the high cards as he carefully choreographed the upcoming confrontation. Governor wallace did not anticipate and, in fact, was initially surprised by the boycott and demonstrations that rocked birmingham beginning that april. He was even more surprised by their growing intensity in a world they publicly engendered. And birmingham was quite different than to stand in the schoolhouse door. Not least because governor wallace was never the ringmaster. Martin luther king, greg shuttlesworth, wyatt t. Walker, james bell and other black activists set the activists set the agenda in Alabama State and birmingham officials could only react. It was not meaning the governor was aloof from events. He in fact followed those very closely. He was personally in almost daily contact with mayor arch hanes and his later successor, disputed successor, albert backel. His constantly issued statements were hardly marked by public respect. When the socalled childrens crusade began, thousands of young black birmingham youth poured into streets, the governor went before the legislator in special address, after repeating his promise to stand in the schoolhouse door, the bulk of his remarks interrupted 21 times by ovations, three times by standing ovations, the bummilk his reta,s bitter attacks by birmingham demonstrators who he described as various points agitators, integrationists, communists who were insent on destroying the freedom and liberty of americans everywhere. Make no mistake, he told lawmaker it, was the communists who were in charge. Everyone knew the demonstrations were communistinspired and communistled. If any deaths occurred, he said through a standing ovation, he would urge Jefferson County grand jury to indict demonstration leaders for murder. Equally critical was the governors unqualified support for outgoing mayor hanes who had called the white businessmen involved in negotiating with the demonstrators a bunch of quizlingly, gutless traitors and publicly expressed his disagreement with the assessment and added the socalled biracial group of appeaser have no business meeting with mobsters, like Martin Luther king, let alone to presuming to negotiate any kind of settlement. And of course there was carter who he also supported without equivocation. The same bull conner he told ahead of time there was going to be a bombing at the gaston motel where Martin Luther king was staying responded, let them blow him up. He was not, he said, pardon my language, going to protect that niggers. O. B. , and he didnt use the abbreviation for s. O. B. Governor wallace used every possible opportunity to support the most recalcitrant forces in alabama. The contrast how governor wallace dealt with the Kennedy Administration, in his words and actions towards demonstrations, its not really that hard to explain. A matter of quite different politics of the two situations. For the most part, he was, as i said the ringmaster of the confrontation of the kennedys and knew the last thing that the president , his brother wanted was a repeat of ole miss. That gave him all the leverage he needed to lay out what became ultimately the stand in the schoolhouse door, but as i said he had no control over events in birmingham. As he confronted thousands of young people willing to put their bodies on the line. Now, he continued in talking about the demonstrations, he continued the same reverence in the same months leading up to the 16th street bombing, i think urging violence, supporting groups with attempted to prevent integration of the birmingham schools, and publicly and i do mean publicly embracing some of the most repellent individuals in the beastiary of violence, including the neonazis. And i cant help but keep thinking of his comments just four days before the bombing when he told a reporter, this society is coming apart the at the seams. What this country needs is a few firstclass funerals. Or his private comments afterwards in which he suggested the bombing might well have been the work of blacks intent on provoking violence or sabotage of the original case against the bombers, making it much more difficult for the fbi to bring charges against them. Now this was the same George Wallace who had served dill gently on the Tuskegee University board of trustees in the early 1950s, the same George Wallace who had been the first judge in alabama using courtesy titles to referring to black clients in his court, the same wallace who sought the governship in 1958 by attacking the ku klux klan and promising his followers to treat everyone with equal Justice Without regard for race. Of course, in part submission to the political winds of racism, having lost in 1958 he famously complained that his opponent, John Patterson, had, quote, outniggered me and ill never be outniggerred again. It reflects something more, a deep and authentic anger over the assertiveness of black southerns. That sense George Wallaces anger and his lack of any kind of balance reflects that of whites of what moderate positions. They were willing to move, and George Wallace had shown early he was toward some kind of more just society but always at their pace. I was a reporter in the late 1950s and even before the events in birmingham i can still recall the sense of hurt and betrayal by white moderates who felt they were trying to do the right thing but negros who should be grateful, they just wouldnt wait. They wouldnt let them set the timetable. If they were frustrated, most whites, even whites who considered themselves people of goodwill, were furious. These people should be grateful to us. Instead, theyre sabotaging them. Its fascinating to read the transcript of a meeting of prominent Birmingham BusinessCommunity President kennedy in may of 1963 in which he tries to reprimand him to get them to do something and they just light into it. You dont understand, were the moderates, were the liberals, and we cant let these demonstrators set the terms of the settlement. It was a sense of betrayal. George wallace, in 1963, was running, his president ial aspirations come shortly afterwards. All of this made him enormously popular in the state. And events from 1963 onward, the war in vietnam, the antiwar movement, what we might call the rise of the counterculture, pornography, sex, all of these things, along with the race riot of 1960s, fight of the 1960s suddenly transformed George Wallace into a national figure, and he ended up, of course, running an extraordinarily successful, not finally but ultimately given his background, Extraordinary Campaign in 1968 in which at one point 28 of the American People said they supported George Wallace for president. Nevertheless, he was always limited of what happened in 1963. No one could ever erase from their minds his actions, his words, and the events of 1963. It always placed a cap on what he in what he could accomplish as a national politician. So i do think, in many ways, what George Wallace, what he said, how he felt, accurately, as it often did, reflected the views of most white house venues and thats a tragedy, of course. Maybe not that fervently, but it was there. So now we sit, 50 years later, what should we remember about these events . Ive tried to suggest that these parochial happenings which marked the triumph off the Civil Rights Movement also led to the rise of a reaction that continues until today. The professions commitment to presenting the commitment of the past as truthfully as possible, but i also share the view of the russian novelist, history, worth wright or reading, shout ultimately lead to some form of moral reflection. At its best, conversation with the past can do more than inform us about what people have said and done. It can help us think about how we should do. And as ive grown older, thats a point of view that has grown stronger. So what do we learn . In answering that question everyone must be their own historian. I can only give you my point of view. And to me, among the many threads that reach backwards beyond 1963 and far until the day when one keeps recurring, and that is the tendency, even the need to divide ourselves between us and them, the worthy and unworthy. It takes many forms. Race, certainly the predominant one in the 1960s. But theres a broader and darker part of the nations history. The tendency to mark out not only africanamericans, but others as somehow unworthy of Human Dignity and worth. Nativeamericans, jews, catholics, rednecks, immigrants, homosexuals. This morning my wife and i were driving over from atlanta and we were in that blank space between atlanta and birmingham, we turned on the radio, and we started listening to christian radio. And i was literally sick to my stomach, as this commentator goes on about the muslims, you know, the muslims. The president is supporting the muslims. The president implicitly is a muslim. The implication being these are people that are horrible, somehow should be expelled from america. Certainly controlled. It takes many forms. And the poor and the isolated as well. At times, i wonder what has what has happened . The mobilization of black and white americans in birmingham evolved into far more than the struggle to buy a hot dog at a lunch counter, even to cast a vote. Those who shaped the fight for civil rights beginning in 1930s used the term beloved Community Without the italics environment. How naive they may seem in retrospect. They held up a vision of an america free from fearlessness, marked by compassion and committed to genuine opportunity for those who live in an iron cage of poverty and social isolation. Above all, they fought against what seems to be our national compulsion, as ive said to divide ourselves between the true american and the other. Given that history, it is difficult to retain some remnant of opposition in a world of violence and a nation divided in one of the most fundamental levels. More and more the goals that inspired me in the 1960s seem like mirages, in an endless desert of selfinterest and greed in which were contem tuous of the notion of Community Shared battles of a community, as i said, dedicated to protecting worth and dignity of every person. And then i remember an essay by a leading scholar of modern buddhism in the 1980s. She visited a group of tibetan monks whose monastery had been destroyed by the chinese government. They begun rebuilding the 1200yearold monastery. The reconstruction with such limited resources was overwhelming and what if the chinese should simply return again with their bulldozers, she asked the monks . They shrugged, macy saw that such calculations were injection to the monks. Since you cannot see into the future, you simply proceed to put one stone on top of the other and another on top of that. If the stones get knocked down, you begin again. Because if you dont, nothing will ever get built. Thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening. Good evening. I am happy to be here on the pan toll discuss the 50th anniversary of the events in birmingham as they relate to governor wallace. Id like