George Wallace: Biography of Alabama’s Segregationist Governor

Who Was George Wallace?

Born in 1919 Clio Alabama, George Corley Wallace earned his law degree from the University of Alabama, graduating in 1942 before his voluntary enlistment into the U.S. Army during World War Two. Serving as assistant state’s attorney in 1946, Wallace was elected to two terms in the state legislature before his election to the bench of the Third Judicial Circuit Court in 1953.

Losing his first bid for Alabama governorship in 1958, to a segregationist candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan, Wallace became known as a “fighting judge” due to his defiance of a federal civil rights investigation into Alabama’s ongoing discrimination against African American voting rights.

Governor George Wallace

Wallace’s growing reputation as a segregationist won him his first of four governorships in 1962, following up on his campaign promise in June of 1963 “to stand in the schoolhouse door” when federalized National Guardsmen forced Wallace to capitulate on his attempts to block Black students from enrolling at the University of Alabama.

His actions and hard-line segregationist pronouncements made Wallace the national face of deeply entrenched racial segregationist sentiment held by many white Americans, and when he ran as a third party candidate during the presidential election of 1968, he captured 13 percent of the vote, mainly from states in Jim Crow South.

Assassination Attempt on George Wallace

During his second term as governor, Wallace embarked on a second campaign for the Oval Office, until he was shot during an assassination attempt on May 15th, 1972—an event which left him paralyzed below the waist for the remainder of his life.

Serving two more terms as Alabama governor, by his final run for office in 1982, Wallace had renounced his segregationist ideology and sought reconciliation with civil rights leaders, receiving substantial support from Black voters before retiring from politics in 1987 due to declining health.

Developing Parkinson’s disease during his final years, Wallace died of septic shock on September 13th, 1998, ending one of the last segregationist voices during the final years of the Jim Crow South.