SYMHC Classics: George Wallace

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class: SYMHC Classics – George Wallace

Release Date: April 12, 2025
Hosts: Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson
Producer: iHeartPodcasts

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Introduction

In this classic episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class, hosts Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson delve into the life and legacy of George Corley Wallace Jr., a polarizing figure in American politics known for his staunch segregationist stance and multiple campaigns for governor and president. The episode explores Wallace's early life, political rise, opposition to the civil rights movement, personal struggles, and eventual attempts at reconciliation.

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Early Life and Political Beginnings

George Wallace was born on August 25, 1919, in southeastern Alabama, where his father was a farmer. Demonstrating an early interest in politics, Wallace served as a government page at the Alabama State Capitol at age 15, laying the foundation for his future political ambitions (04:39). His education journey saw him balancing academics with boxing, where he won two state titles, and pursuing a law degree, which he completed in 1942 (04:39).

In 1942, Wallace met Lurleen Burns, a 16-year-old working at a five-and-dime store. The couple married in 1943 while Wallace was on leave from the U.S. Army Air Corps, where he served during World War II but was medically discharged in 1945 due to severe anxiety (05:04).

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First Gubernatorial Campaign and Personal Struggles

Wallace began his active political career in 1946 as an assistant to the state attorney general and was elected to the Alabama state legislature in 1947. During his initial campaigns, Lurleen became the family's primary breadwinner, highlighting the personal toll of Wallace's political dedication (06:17).

In 1958, Wallace made his first attempt to become governor of Alabama. Running against pro-segregation candidate John Patterson, Wallace initially enjoyed support from progressive figures like the NAACP. However, he lost the Democratic primary to Patterson, who was backed by the Ku Klux Klan. This defeat marked a turning point, compelling Wallace to adopt a more explicitly pro-segregation platform in future campaigns (09:14).

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Rise to Prominence and Segregationist Rhetoric

In 1962, Wallace ran for governor again, this time with a clear pro-segregation and states' rights agenda, garnering support from segregationist groups including the Ku Klux Klan. He triumphed in the Democratic primary and won the general election unopposed, receiving over 300,000 votes—a record in Alabama at the time (12:13).

Wallace's inaugural address, co-written by Klansman Asa Carter, famously declared, "segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever" (11:56). This rhetoric fueled some of the most notorious incidents of racial violence during the civil rights movement, with critics attributing the increasing brutality to Wallace's inflammatory statements (12:13).

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Key Events During Wallace's Governorship

Children's Crusade and Birmingham Church Bombing

In May 1963, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Children's Crusade involved children marching in Birmingham to protest segregation. Wallace and local authorities responded with extreme measures, including high-pressure fire hoses and police dogs, leading to national outrage (17:03).

A few months later, on September 15, 1963, the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed, resulting in the tragic deaths of four young girls. In the wake of this atrocity, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. directly blamed Wallace for creating the hostile environment that led to such violence:

"The blood of four little children is on your hands."
(17:38, Tracy V. Wilson)

Stand in the Schoolhouse Door

In 1963, Vivian Malone and James Hood attempted to enroll at the previously segregated University of Alabama. Wallace infamously blocked their entry in what became known as the "Stand in the Schoolhouse Door", symbolizing his resistance to desegregation despite federal court orders (19:06). This act significantly escalated tensions and underscored Wallace's defiance against civil rights advancements.

Selma to Montgomery March

The relentless suppression of black voting rights led to the Selma to Montgomery marches. Bloody Sunday, on March 7, 1965, saw state troopers brutally attacking peaceful marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge under Wallace's orders (20:23). Despite Wallace's claims that the violence was unintended, the event galvanized national support for voting rights, directly influencing the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (21:58).

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Lurleen Wallace: Political Partner and Tragic Figure

Lurleen Burns Wallace, Wallace's first wife, played a significant role in his political life. Initially uninterested in politics, she was thrust into the limelight when Wallace attempted a second presidential run in 1968. Unable to seek a consecutive governorship due to Alabama's constitution, Wallace orchestrated Lurleen's candidacy. Despite her health struggles with cancer, Lurleen won the governor's seat, becoming the first woman governor elected in the Deep South (25:00).

During her tenure, Lurleen pushed for initiatives in state parks and mental health. However, her time in office was cut short by her deteriorating health, leading to her death in May 1968 at age 41. Her passing was met with widespread public mourning, reflecting her unexpected impact on Alabama politics (27:23).

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Presidential Campaigns and Later Political Career

Wallace's political ambitions extended beyond Alabama. He first sought the presidency in 1964 but refrained from aggressively pursuing the race due to the national political climate. In 1968, under the American Independent Party, Wallace garnered significant support by appealing to disaffected white voters who opposed civil rights advancements. Tragically, during a campaign rally in Laurel, Maryland, Wallace was shot by Arthur Bremer, leaving him paralyzed from the waist down and ending his presidential aspirations (34:14).

Undeterred, Wallace returned to Alabama politics, winning the governorship again in 1970 and 1974. His campaigns during this period began to shift subtly as political and social sentiments in the U.S. evolved. By the 1980s, Wallace sought to reach out to the black community, appointing black officials and emphasizing inclusive policies. Historians debate whether these changes were genuine efforts at reconciliation or strategic political maneuvering (35:31).

In 1976, Wallace made another presidential bid as a Democrat, focusing on issues like law and order and opposition to federal interference. Despite winning several primaries, his campaign was derailed by the earlier shooting incident. He eventually endorsed Jimmy Carter, who secured the Democratic nomination (35:31).

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Legacy and Final Years

George Wallace's political journey is marked by profound contradictions and transformations. Initially a symbol of resistance to civil rights, his later years saw attempts at bridging divides and promoting inclusivity. In 1982, he was elected to his fourth and final term as Alabama governor, solidifying his unique place in the state's political history.

Wallace retired in 1987 and passed away on September 13, 1998, in Montgomery, Alabama. His legacy remains contentious, embodying both the entrenched segregationist policies of his time and the complex nature of political redemption.

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Conclusion

George Wallace's story is a testament to the turbulent times of the American civil rights era and the enduring impact of political rhetoric on societal change. Holly Fry and Tracy V. Wilson adeptly navigate Wallace's multifaceted legacy, providing listeners with a comprehensive understanding of his influence on Alabama and the broader national landscape.

"Wallace, more than any other political figure of the 1960s and early 1970s, sensed the frustrations. The rage of many American voters made commonplace a new level of political incivility and intemperate rhetoric and focused that anger upon a convenient set of scapegoats."
—Patia Eaton (38:01)

This episode not only chronicles Wallace's political maneuvers but also invites reflection on the enduring effects of divisive leadership and the possibilities of personal and political transformation.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• George Wallace's Inaugural Address:
  "Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever."
  (11:56)

• Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on Wallace:
  "The blood of four little children is on your hands."
  (17:38)

• George Wallace on Intervention in Education:
  "Such action will not be allowed on the part of any other group of citizens or non-citizens of the state of Alabama..."
  (20:23)

• Tracy V. Wilson on George Wallace's Influence:
  "Wallace, more than any other political figure of the 1960s and early 1970s, sensed the frustrations..."
  (38:01)

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References

• Transcript segments extracted and summarized from the "SYMHC Classics: George Wallace" episode of Stuff You Missed in History Class by iHeartPodcasts.

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For more in-depth explorations of historical figures and events, subscribe to Stuff You Missed in History Class on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Hannah Smith]

A crime makes headlines, people talk about it for a few days, then it disappears. But for the people left behind, their.

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[Patia Eaton]

Part of the power of black queer creativity is the fact that we got us.

[Hannah Smith]

You know, we are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcasts.

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[Patia Eaton]

Happy Saturday. This week when we Talked about the Camden 28, we mentioned that there was a George Wallace campaign rally during that trial. Today, George Wallace is better known for his time as governor of Alabama, but at the time he was running for president.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Our episode on George Wallace originally came.

[Hannah Smith]

Out on November 29, 2016, and it is today's Saturday classic.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartRadio.

[Patia Eaton]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. W and I'M Holly Fry. Over the past few years, Holly, you and I have talked about a number of prominent figures and moments in the civil rights movement.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That is correct.

[Patia Eaton]

So we've talked about people like Rosa Parks and Bayard Rustin, and we've talked about Supreme Court decisions like Brown vs Board and Loving vs Virginia, organizations like the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters. But other than talking sort of obliquely about the laws and practices and social systems that have enforced segregation and discrimination in the United States, as well as talking about some specific incidents of racist violence, like the destruction of the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, we've never really talked a lot about the opposition to that movement. So today we are talking about one of the most prominent voices against the civil rights movement and its objectives, Alabama Governor George Wallace, who spent multiple campaigns for both governor and president on an explicitly pro segregation platform. In his 1963 inaugural address as governor of Alabama, he famously proclaimed, segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever. So we're going to be talking about violent retaliation against the civil rights, Civil rights movement that happened during his terms in office. And we're also going to be talking a lot about his first wife, Lurleen. He was married other times, so we're not really getting into that at all. But we are going to, are going to talk about Lurleen, whose own story is both tied directly to her husband's political career and includes a pretty disturbing account of medical neglect.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So, George Corley Wallace Jr. Was born on August 25th of 1919 in southeastern Alabama, where his father was a farmer. His political career started very early, at the age of 15, when he served as a government page at the Alabama State Capitol and made up his mind to return one day as governor. In his high school years, he was also a boxer, winning two state titles in that sport.

[Patia Eaton]

Wallace studied at the University of Alabama, paying his tuition by waiting tables and boxing. He graduated in 1937 and then finished his law degree in 1942. That same year, at the age of 24, he met Lurleen Burns, who was then 16, while she was working at a five and dime in Tuscaloosa. She had graduated from high school early, and she was working there to try to save up money to go to nursing school. George was already very interested in politics, something that didn't really interest Lurleen at all, but they quickly became inseparable.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Not long after they met, Wallace was inducted into the U.S. army Air Corps to serve in World War II. He and Lurleen got married on May 21, 1943, while he was on leave after having contracted meningitis. They spent their honeymoon in a friend's guest room, although George spent a lot of his time out talking politics.

[Patia Eaton]

While he was still stateside, Lurleen traveled back and forth between her parents home in Alabama and the air bases where he was stationed. This included a trip to New Mexico, which she made with their five month old daughter, Bobbi Jo, only to find that George had not arranged housing for them on the base. They wound up needing to stay in a converted chicken coop.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Soon George would be stationed in the Pacific, where he flew incendiary missions over Japan until being medically discharged for severe anxiety in 1945.

[Patia Eaton]

In 1946, he started actively pursuing a political career. He became assistant to the state attorney general, and in 1947 he was elected to the Alabama state legislature as representative for the first of his two terms. During his campaign, Lurleen was the family's sole breadwinner.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He was elected a judge for the third judicial court in 1953, a position that he retained until 1958. And this job came with enough income for him to buy a home for the family. Up until this point, they had been living in a variety of rented rooms and garage apartments and his nickname became Fighting Little Judge, both for his toughness from the bench and his former time as a boxer while he was in school.

[Patia Eaton]

Over the same time, he and Lurleen had two more children, Peggy sue, born in 1950, and George Corley Wallace III, known as George Jr. In 1951. And Lurleen was increasingly frustrated by her husband devotion to politics, often to the neglect of his family.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

At this point in his career, people were calling George Wallace, quote, a dangerous liberal. He was part of charismatic Governor Big Jim Folsom's re election campaign in 1953. Folsom was also Wallace's mentor and in later years would be described as being way ahead of his time in terms of social progress and racial equality. Folsom's positions during his career included things like voting rights for black people, an end to prison labor, better schools, funding for roads to make it easier for farmers to get their crops to market, and more government positions for women. Much of this, of course, was an uphill battle and ultimately failed.

[Patia Eaton]

A lot of Wallace's policies in the earlier part of his career mostly mirrored Folsom's. During his two terms in the state legislature, he drafted legislation to promote vocational schools and attract manufacturing jobs to Alabama. In 1948, when pro segregation Dixiecrats walked out of the Democratic National Convention, both Wallace and Folsom stayed put while in.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Office in the state House of Representatives, Wallace sponsored a bill that taxed alcohol to fund trade schools. The Wallace act, which was signed in 1951 and was half of what became known as the Wallace Cater act, allowed municipalities to sell bonds in order to fund industrial development. This was part of an effort to bring jobs to Alabama and diversify the state's economy. Critics called the Wallace Cater Acts socialistic. Another criticism was that most of the industries that moved into Alabama through the act's incentive were low wage non union work that paid lower than the national average.

[Patia Eaton]

In 1958, Wallace embarked on his first campaign to be the governor of Alabama. He continued on with the kind of populist policies and relatively moderate positions on racial equality that he had up until this point. Obviously that is not his entire platform, but you know, he was sort of continuing similar similarly to what his mentor had. And Big Jim Folsom had been elected on a similar platform in both 1946 and 1954. But Wallace's opponent in the Democratic primary was Attorney General John Patterson. Patterson was running on a pro segregation platform supported by the Ku Klux Klan. Wallace, on the other hand, had the support of the national association for the Advancement of Colored People, or naacp. The primary went into a runoff with Patterson beating Wallace and then beating the Republican candidate William Longshore by a landslide.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When asked what had gone wrong, Wallace reportedly told supporters some version of the following quote which uses a slur that we are not going to repeat. I got out n worded by John Patterson. This is the first and last time I will be out n worded by another candidate. This quote and variations on it have been widely reported, but Wallace would later deny ever saying it.

[Patia Eaton]

Apart from shifting his politics on race completely. This loss for governor took a toll on Wallace's personal life. Lurleen, fed up with his absences and rumors of infidelity and a deep depression that he went into following the loss, took the children to her parents house and filed for divorce. George begged her to come back and the two eventually reconciled. And their last child, Janie Lee, named after Robert E. Lee, was born in 1961.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Wallace returned to his position in the circuit court where he turned his attention to blocking federal efforts at civil rights. When the US Civil Rights Commission requested that he turn over voting records, he refused to do it and was threatened with prison for contempt. He wound up turning the records over by handing them over to grand juries to turn in on his behalf so he could say that he had not personally given the government those records, but he could also stay out of jail.

[Patia Eaton]

In 1962, Wallace ran for governor again. This time he took a pro segregation, pro states rights platform and like John Patterson, got the support of the Ku Klux Klan. He won the Democratic primary after a runoff and the Republican party fielded no candidate at all in the election. Even though he was running unopposed, he got more than 300,000 votes, more than any candidate in Alabama history at that time.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

That infamous Segregation Forever inaugural address was co written by Klansman Asa Carter, who could easily be his own podcast subject as he also wrote the Education of Little Tree and the rebel outlaw Josie Wales under the pseudonym of Forrest Carter.

[Patia Eaton]

Wallace's first term saw some of the most notorious incidents of racist violence in the civil rights movement, with critics blaming Wallace's rhetoric for stoking the fire. And we are going to talk about it after a quick sponsor break.

[Larison Campbell]

There's a type of soil in Mississippi called Yazoo Clay. It's thick, burnt orange, and it's got a reputation.

[Patia Eaton]

It's terrible, terrible dirt.

[Larison Campbell]

Yazoo clay eats everything. So things that get buried there tend to stay buried until they're not. In 2012, construction crews at Mississippi's biggest hospital made a shocking discovery.

[Hannah Smith]

7,000 bodies out there or more, all.

[Larison Campbell]

Former patients of the old state asylum. And nobody knew they were there.

[Hannah Smith]

It was my family's mystery.

[Larison Campbell]

But in this corner of the south, it's not just the soil that keeps secrets.

[Patia Eaton]

Nobody talks about it. Nobody has any information.

[Larison Campbell]

When you peel back the layers of Mississippi's Yazoo Clay, nothing's ever as simple as you think.

[Sophia Bush]

The story is much more complicated and nuanced than that.

[Larison Campbell]

Larry, I'm Larison Campbell. Listen to under yazukle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

[Sophia Bush]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Sophia Bush]

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[Hannah Smith]

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[Patia Eaton]

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[Tracy V. Wilson]

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[Sophia Bush]

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[Hannah Smith]

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[Sophia Bush]

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[Larison Campbell]

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[Patia Eaton]

Although there were certainly incidents of racial violence before George Wallace took office in Alabama, and that violence was not confined just to Alabama. Some of the most infamous incidents in the United States civil rights movement happened there during his first term.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

On May 2, 1963, children began marching from Birmingham 16th Street Baptist Church to City hall as part of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference's Children's Crusade. That first day, hundreds were arrested when even more gathered to March. On May 3, Birmingham Commissioner of Public Safety Bull Connor used high pressure fire hoses, police dogs and clubs to turn them back. This was televised and although the march itself was controversial because it put children in danger, it propelled the Movement into the national spotlight.

[Patia Eaton]

The 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed just before the start of Sunday School on September 15, 1963, killing Addie Mae Collins, Cynthia Wesley, Denise McNair and Carol Robertson, ages 11 to 14. A week before the bombing, George Wallace had told the New York times that there needed to be, quote, a few first class funerals. So civil rights activists accused him of creating the climate that led to the bombing. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Wired him to say, quote, the blood of four little children is on your hands. Your irresponsible and misguided actions have created in Birmingham and Alabama the atmosphere that has induced continued violence and now murder.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1963, two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, tried to enroll in the university of Alabama at Tuscaloosa, which was still segregated in spite of the fact that nine years had passed since the supreme court found school segregation unconstitutional in Brown vs Board of Education. It was also in spite of the attempt of one other black student, authorine Lucy, who attended classes for three days in 1956.

[Patia Eaton]

She was suspended, quote, for her own safety because white students were rioting over her admission, including throwing tomatoes and eggs at her. She threw. She sued the school, which then used that lawsuit as grounds to expel her permanently.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

When Malone and Hood tried to enroll, US District judge Seaborn lin forbade Wallace from interfering, But Wallace defied that order. Flanked by state troopers, he personally blocked the door to foster auditorium where they were to register for classic until the national guard arrived later in the day to intervene. This became known as the stand in the schoolhouse door. And it was one of the things that prompted president John f. Kennedy to push for civil rights legislation.

[Patia Eaton]

Selma, Alabama was also the scene of ongoing nonviolent civil rights protests during this time which were repeatedly met with arrests and violence on the part of law enforcement. Many of these related to voting rights at the time. Discriminatory literacy tests, poll tax, poll taxes, and a flat out refusal to register black people to vote meant that many black people could not.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

These protests included a series of marches to the Selma courthouse to try to register people to vote, and eventually to the Selma to Montgomery march, which was a symbolic march to the state's capitol following activist Jimmie Lee Jackson being shot and killed by a state trooper during a march. Jackson was one of several civil rights activists killed in Alabama during Wallace's administration.

[Patia Eaton]

Wallace had insisted that this march would not take place, saying, quote, such action will not be allowed on the part of any other group of citizens or non citizens of the state of Alabama and will not be allowed in this instance, the government must proceed in an orderly manner and lawful and law abiding citizens must transact their business with the government in such a manner. There will be no march between Selma, Alabama and Montgomery, and I have so instructed the department of public safety on.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

What came to be known as bloody Sunday. On March 7, 1965, several hundred marchers to Selma tried to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge under Wallace's orders. To stop the march, state troopers and a posse assembled by Dallas county sheriff Jim Clark attacked the marchers and brutally beat them.

[Patia Eaton]

Wallace would later say, quote, it was something that happened that enraged me because I didn't intend for it to happen that way, but I didn't want them to get beyond that point where there was some people that told me there might be some violence. So in other words, to prevent the marchers from getting to somewhere where people were waiting to hurt them, the police hurt them.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

The Selma to Montgomery march would be turned away at the bridge a second time before U.S. district Judge Frank M. Johnson ordered that the marchers be allowed to exercise their constitutional rights. Wallace said that Alabama did not have the resources to protect them. And president Lyndon Johnson federalized the Alabama national Guard and sent military, police and army troops to act as an escort.

[Patia Eaton]

These Selma to Montgomery marches raised national awareness of voting rights issues and contributed directly to president Lyndon Johnson's push for the Voting Rights act of 1965. This act banned most of the strategies that had been used to keep black people from voting. However, in 2012, the Supreme Court struck down one of its provisions which had required states that had previously used discriminatory election laws to get federal approval before changing their election laws. As a result, several states implemented election laws that the federal government had previously denied as discriminatory.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

So we're going to back up just a little bit because in 1964, Wallace had actually made his first run at the White House, getting his name on the ballot in three states. And he didn't pursue the race aggressively, in part because Republican candidate Barry Goldwater publicly denounced the civil Rights act of 1964, which was basically Wallace's whole platform. Propelled by Goldwater's ultimate loss in the race, Wallace decided to make a bigger effort in 1968. But there was a problem. He'd have far more support in doing so if he was still governor. But the Alabama constitution did not allow governors to serve. Consecut first, he tried to get the.

[Patia Eaton]

State legislature to amend the constitution so that he could run again. But that failed. So instead of admitting defeat, he put his wife Lurleen on the ballot with the intent of basically running things from behind the scenes. He would basically still have a lot of the perks that came along with being governor that he could use as a springboard to run for president again, with his wife actually being the one in office.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

However, Lurleen had cancer. During the cesarean delivery of their daughter, Janie Lee, in 1961. Doctors had found a suspicious mass in her uterus. And as was common practice at the time, the doctors told George, but not Lurleen, and they left it up to him whether she should be informed. And George kept this information from her, saying that he didn't want to upset her. So four years later, in 1965, when she went to a gynecologist because she was having unusual bleeding, she was completely shocked to find that she had a malignant tumor.

[Patia Eaton]

In spite of her complete lack of interest in politics, and in spite of the fact that she had just undergone a hysterectomy and radiation treatments, which were described to the public as female surgery, Lurleen agreed to run as her husband's stand in. She ran on a campaign of upholding all of her husband's policies and his being her number one assistant in the early days on the campaign trail, she would start off by giving a brief prepared remarks before introducing her husband, who would then basically take it over. From there. As she gradually became more confident in her. Her speaking skills, she did start to campaign on her own, and in the.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

End, she beat 10 male candidates, some of them former governors, in the primary. She then won the election by a landslide, becoming the first woman governor elected in the deep south.

[Patia Eaton]

When her term as governor began, she and George had offices across the hall from each other, and staff called them Governor Lurleen and Governor George. She did push for some initiatives of her own, including legislation related to state parks and to mental health. That latter following a tour she made of two state institutions whose conditions really horrified her during her time in office. The Alabama legislature also ratified an amendment that would allow governors to serve consecutive terms.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And as promised, she also upheld her husband's promise to fight integration. In March of 1967, a federal court ordered that Alabama schools must be desegregated in Lee vs. Macon County Board of Education. This followed a lengthy series of maneuverings that George Wallace had overseen during his first term as governor to try to stop integration. This includes delaying the start of school stationing troops at schools to prevent black students from entering and transferring all of the white students out of Tuskegee high school. After black students Were enrolled there.

[Patia Eaton]

Following the court order that came down during Lurleen Wallace's time in office, she delivered an address that stridently denounced this ruling as infringing on the state's rights, Vowing to use state troopers to prevent integration if necessary. This case then went on to the supreme court in wallace versus the united States, and the supreme court upheld the lower court's ruling, at which point some progress was actually made in desegregating the schools.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Learleen Wallace was not able, however, to keep up her duties as governor for long. In July of 1967, doctors found another tumor in her abdomen, Followed by numerous other tumors. The following January, she underwent tests and.

[Patia Eaton]

Treatment at the MD Anderson clinic in houston, texas. Because there wasn't a cancer center in Alabama, because she was governor, she had to travel back to Alabama during her treatment at least once every 20 days. During a lot of this time, she was in severe pain, and she underwent multiple operations. This went on until May of 1968, when she returned home to her family to die.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And she died on May 7, 1968, at the age of 41, after just 16 months in office.

[Patia Eaton]

Her body lay in state in an open casket, Something that her husband ordered in defiance of her wishes at the capitol rotunda. This was the first time anyone had lain in state there since the 1889 death of Jefferson Davis, who had been president of the confederate states of america. Her death was met with a huge outpouring of public grief, with public schools, state offices, and some businesses closing the day of the funeral and more than 25,000 people going to the capitol to pay their respects.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

And we're gonna next get into Wallace's later career. But first, we're gonna pause for a moment and have a word from one of our sponsors.

[Larison Campbell]

There's a type of soil in Mississippi Called yazoo clay. It's thick, burnt orange, and it's got a reputation.

[Patia Eaton]

It's terrible, terrible dirt.

[Larison Campbell]

Yazoo clay eats everything, so things that get buried there tend to stay buried until they're not. In 2012, construction crews at Mississippi's biggest hospital Made a shocking discovery.

[Patia Eaton]

7,000 bodies out there or more, all.

[Larison Campbell]

Former patients of the old state asylum, and nobody knew they were there.

[Hannah Smith]

It was my family's mystery.

[Larison Campbell]

But in this corner of the south, it's not just the soil that keeps secrets.

[Patia Eaton]

Nobody talks about it. Nobody has any information.

[Larison Campbell]

When you peel back the layers of Mississippi's yazoo clay, Nothing's ever as simple as you think.

[Anna Sinfield]

The story is much more complicated and nuanced than that.

[Larison Campbell]

I'm Larison Campbell. Listen to under yazukle on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast.

[Sophia Bush]

Hi, friends. Sophia Bush here, host of work in progress. This week we had such a special guest on the podcast My Forever flotus. A mentor, a friend, a wife, a mother, an author, attorney, advocate, television producer. And now she adds podcast host to the list herself. Friends, Michelle Obama is here.

[Hannah Smith]

Sophia, I'm beyond thrilled to be able.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

To sit down and chat with you.

[Sophia Bush]

We talk about it all. Life, love, motherhood. Martinis.

[Patia Eaton]

Vodka martini, dry, straight up.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Olives.

[Hannah Smith]

Ooh, olives.

[Patia Eaton]

Very cold, my girl. Barely any vermouth.

[Sophia Bush]

What's next? What she's watching on tv?

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Buy him a white lotuser. I am a Real Housewives person.

[Sophia Bush]

I love the dating shows and tennis.

[Hannah Smith]

I just find that to be a bit meditative.

[Sophia Bush]

You do not want to miss this. Listen to work in Progress on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Jay Shetty]

Hey, I'm Jay Shetty, and if you've ever felt the weight of letting go of people, past versions of yourself, or the expectations placed on you, this episode is for you. Lizzo opens up like never before about self love, transformation and finding real peace in a world that constantly tries to define you.

[Hannah Smith]

It's not me anymore. Whoever Lizzo is to the world is not really even me. And that disconnect is depressing. The Grammy goes to Lizzo.

[Jay Shetty]

I think it's also hard when the things that you stand for are the same things that you're being scrutinized for.

[Hannah Smith]

The weight that is no longer on me is not just fat or physical. I released so much to get to this point and to be honest with you, I don't feel like I've expressed myself fully in the last two years.

[Jay Shetty]

Listen to On Purpose with Jay Shetty on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hannah Smith]

Got you.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

I got you.

[Hannah Smith]

Got you.

[Anna Sinfield]

The number one hit true crime podcast, the Girlfriends, is back with something new. The Girlfriend Spotlight. Our first two series introduce you to an incredible gang of women who teamed up to fight injustice, showing just how powerful sisterly solidarity can be. We're keeping this mission alive with the Girlfriends Spotlight. Each week, a different woman sits down with me, Anna Sinfield, to share their incredible story of triumph over adversity. Like June, who founded an all female rock band in the 1960s.

[Sophia Bush]

I might as well have said, we're.

[Hannah Smith]

Gonna walk on the moon, but she.

[Anna Sinfield]

Sure showed them who's boss and toured the world.

[Patia Eaton]

They would just be gobsmacked and they.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Would rush up after the set and.

[Larison Campbell]

Say, not bad for chicks, so come.

[Anna Sinfield]

And join our girl gang. Listen to the girlfriend Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Patia Eaton]

After Lurleen Wallace's death in 1968, she was succeeded by the lieutenant governor, Albert Brewer, who raised funds for a cancer center at the University of Alabama in her memory. And that same year, as he had been planning to do, George Wallace ran for president again. Under the American Independent Party, Wallace got.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Onto the ballot in every state and he won five of them, earning more than 10% of the popular vote. Although he dropped some of his most explicit racist language, his campaign decried the influence of things like liberals, communists, and the interference of the federal government, Leaning on more coded language to reach out to white voters who were unhappy with the progress of integration and increasing civil rights for black people.

[Patia Eaton]

He ran for governor again in 1970, using much of the same anti integration platform that had won him the election in 1962. And at times, the 1970 campaign was even more explicit. But once he was actually in office, he softened his rhetoric. Following the passage of the Voting Rights act and the long work of the civil rights movement, many of Alabama's black population, who made up more than a quarter of the state's population, were now registered to vote. Wallace realized that he would undermine his efforts if he continued to explicitly attack such a large group of the state's voters.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In 1972, Wallace once again ran for president, this time as a Democrat and once again primarily reaching out to disaffected white voters, decrying forced busing to integrate schools and welfare, loafing and advocating, quote, a return to law and order and an end to foreign aid programs, especially to communist countries.

[Patia Eaton]

After winning the state of Florida, his campaign looked like it was set to be a lot more successful than he had been in 1968. But then while he was campaigning in Laurel, Maryland, he was shot by Arthur Bremer while working the crowd at a rally. Bremer had previously planned to assassinate Richard Nixon, but had ultimately never opened fire.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

While still recuperating, Wallace won the primaries in Maryland and Michigan as well. However, this injury left Wallace paralyzed from the waist down, and since he was hospitalized for months, he was unable to continue his campaign. He would go on to maintain that he would have won that presidency had he not been shot.

[Patia Eaton]

Although his injury put him out of the presidential race, he ran for Alabama governor again in 1974 since that amendment to the state constit institution that had come through during Lurleen Wallace's administration once again allowed him to do so. He won for his third term and his second consecutive term, and he once.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Again spent part of his term as governor, again running for president. In 1976, he won the states of Alabama, South Carolina and Mississippi in the primary, ultimately losing the Democratic nomination to Jimmy Carter, who he endorsed after dropping out of the race.

[Patia Eaton]

He had numerous biographers describe him as being a lot more interested in campaigning than in governing.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

It sure sounds that way. He spends a lot of his time as governor on the presidential campaign trail.

[Patia Eaton]

That's a true story. So after his gunshot injury and in light of the changing racial politics of the United States in his later life, George Wallace started reaching out to the black community and trying to make amends. Historians and biographers really disagree on whether this attempt was motivated by a genuine change in views or whether it was political savvy and a desire not to be remembered on the wrong side of history.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He began to insist that his hard line segregationist stance was based on the Constitution and a misreading of the Bible, not on white supremacy. This does not, however, quite sync with some of the quotes that are attributed to him, such as, quote, the colored are fine in their place, but they're just like children and it's not something that's going to change. It's written in stone.

[Patia Eaton]

He also met with several of the still living civil rights leaders who he had actively worked against, including the Reverend Ralph D. Abernathy, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and Representative John Lewis. Lewis had been seriously beaten on Bloody Sunday during the first Selma to Montgomery march while presenting her with the Lurleen B. Wallace Award for Courage. He also praised Vivian Malone for her, quote, strength, grace and above all, courageous during the stand in the schoolhouse door.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

In the words of Selma attorney J.L. chestnut, quoted in the PBS American Experience production George Set in the woods on Fire, which came out in 2000, quote, I have no problem forgiving George Wallace. I will not forget George Wallace, because we must deal with the reality of Wallace. How is it that a demagogue insulting 20 million black people daily on the television can rise to the heights that Wallace did? Forgive, yes, forget, never.

[Patia Eaton]

George Wallace was elected to his last term as governor in 1982 in a campaign that actively sought and received votes from the black community. His win made him the only person in Alabama history to serve for four terms, and we took office in 1983. He made it a point to appoint black officials to government positions. He also became a born again Christian that year.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

He retired from that last term in January of 1987, and he died on September 13th of 1998 in Montgomery, Alabama.

[Patia Eaton]

Regardless of whether Wallace's shifts in racial ideology were genuine or just politically expedient, his methods of campaigning and his shifting platforms have really had a long lasting influence on American politics. Dan T. Carter, in a paper published in the Journal of Southern History in 1996, writes, Wallace, more than any other political figure of the 1960s and early 1970s, sensed the frustrations. The rage of many American voters, made commonplace a new level of political incivility and intemperate rhetoric and focused that anger upon a convenient set of scapegoats. That was in 1996. So that is George Wallace. Someone asked us on yeah, somebody asked us on Twitter one time if we would do a podcast on Bull Connor, who was the person who turned the fire hoses on the Children's Crusade during their march. I'm just gonna say, after having done this one, I'm not that that's gonna be way down the list because this is hard.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Yeah.

[Patia Eaton]

Thanks so much for joining us on this Saturday. If you'd like to send us a note, our email address is history podcastheartradio.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

[Hannah Smith]

After a crime, you read the headlines. But do you know the story? At the time that I called the police, he knew I had called him and left the house with a firearm and was texting me that he was going to use it. I'm Hannah Smith.

[Patia Eaton]

And I'm Patia Eaton.

[Hannah Smith]

We host the Knife, a podcast from the Exactly Right Network that cuts to the heart of the story through in depth interviews and candid conversations. We'll bring you first hand accounts of people living through the ripple effects of crime. Most of us don't know the legal process and because they always tell you this word, closure, I really wish people would stop using that word because there is no such thing as closure. These are the scars that are left behind. These are the voices you haven't heard. New episodes every Thursday. Listen to the knife on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Sam Mullins]

Hi, I'm Sam Mullins and I've got a new podcast coming out called goboy the Gritty true story of how one man fought his way out of some of the darkest places imaginable.

[Anna Sinfield]

Roger Caron was 16 when first convicted.

[Patia Eaton]

Has spent 24 of those years in jail.

[Sam Mullins]

But when Roger Caron picked up a pen and paper, he went from an ex con to a literary darling from Campside Media and I heart podcasts. Listen to goboy on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Anna Sinfield]

The number one hit podcast, the Girlfriends, is back with something new, the Girlfriends Spotlight, where each week you'll hear women share their stories of triumph over adversity. You'll meet June, who founded an all female rock band in the 1960s.

[Sophia Bush]

I might as well have said we're.

[Tracy V. Wilson]

Gonna walk on the moon.

[Anna Sinfield]

But she showed them who's boss.

[Patia Eaton]

They would rush up and say, not bad for chicks.

[Anna Sinfield]

Come and join our girl gang. Listen to the Girlfriend Spotlight on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Hannah Smith]

I'm ready to fight. Oh, this is Fighting Words. Okay, I'll put the hammer back. Hi, I'm George M. Johnson, a best selling author with with the second most banned book in America. Now more than ever, we need to use our voices to fight back.

[Patia Eaton]

Part of the power of black queer creativity is the fact that we got us.

[Hannah Smith]

You know, we are the greatest culture makers in world history. Listen to Fighting words on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast.