Colorist: Cherry Enoki This was done by anarchists, revolutionaries, the Molotov cocktail set. NARR: Wallace, the newsmaker, now traveled the country, speaking to both hostile and friendly audiences, every appearance boosting his stature back home in Alabama. I read in the paper where, when President Nixon came down to dedicate some kind of waterway Gerald had, had met with some of the Nixon people, you know. Tommy Giles KENNEDY: It was one of the best times of her life. If you’ll just sit down, I’ll drown ‘em out. Their faces were one inch from the glass that would shatter with a blunt nosed bullet. It had happened once before out in Texas when a colorful couple called Ma and Pa Ferguson had pulled off this same sort of scam. SETTIN‘ THE WOODS ON FIRE: RURAL INCENDIARISM AS PROTEST. Wallace is a pig, ooh-ah! she was just good at, at, at really bringing out the best in my father. GEORGIA HUMANITIES COUNCIL CARTER: Wallace, by the mid-1960s was certainly aware that he was a figure in danger. He uh-- the one time progressive decided to sell his soul for the governorship. She said, "Look. He rose to power as the nation’s best-known segregationist in the early 1960s, but later in his career he was elected governor of Alabama with overwhelming black support. USAF Museum Collection, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio NARR: The early 60s saw civil rights sit-ins and integrated freedom bus rides spread all across the South. Born in 1919 in rural south Alabama, George Wallace was raised in tiny Barbour County, birthplace of five other Alabama governors. But the solution was right by his side. They were all around Selma that day, folk, who disliked George Wallace intensely, were praying that he’d recover. CARTER: In 1968, uh, it is true that the heart of his support remains in the South. TRAMMELL: I meet that automobile outside and I tell him, Governor, when you step out of this automobile, you walk right down that little concrete path there, where you see there the news media on your left, the state troopers on your right, all backed up by the, uh, National Guard. BUCHANAN: But for someone like Wallace whose, whose appeal really is, he’s got a tremendous amount of animal energy and dynamism. The president’s attempt to sway the election had failed.. And you know the militant black bloc vote in this state if they take over-- it’s going to control politics for the next 50 years in Alabama and I know you are not going to let that happen. And unlike 1959, this time there was no doubt who had lost and who had won. George Wallace returned to Montgomery, as he always had after a failed presidential bid. repeatedly] And I said, "What’s going on?" He said, "Yes." Alabama Dept. But very little is ever simple and the story of George Wallace is no exception. KATZENBACH: You stand upon that statement. And he still had popularity. He said, "Well, it’s our militia." The arrest three years earlier of Rosa Parks in Montgomery for refusing to give up her bus seat to a white man, had grown into a Negro boycott of the city’s segregated buses, and had given rise to a mass movement for civil rights, led by a young minister named Martin Luther King, Jr. Elizabeth Arkush She was Big Jim Folsom’s niece, a former beauty queen, the recently divorced Cornelia Ellis Snively. CARTER: And, of course, the threat to the opponents is that he will capture enough electoral votes, mainly in the South, that he’ll capture enough electoral votes that um, neither of his Democratic or Republican opponents will be able to capture a majority of the electoral college. Even the Milwaukee Journal had to report this -- they played "Dixie" and 3,500 people stood and sung it in Polish. Get a sneak peek of the new version of this page. You can’t do that to me. But this time, he had only two more years of the governorship. John Grybowski With the outspoken general at his side, George Wallace introduced to the national press his choice for vice president. Or re-election. And I said, "Sag," that’s what we called him, "Sag," ‘cause he kind of sagged when he walked, [laughs] you know, he didn’t have very good posture. NARR: The momentum from Wallace’s Florida win had continued to grow. The jeering mobs, the fire hoses and dogs as seen on television, the cold-blooded murder of Sunday school children, the police brutality of "Bloody Sunday" at Selma were seared forever on the nation's memory. NARR: Despite the hard times, the Wallace family grew. NIXON: I know that all of us, uh, certainly wish that Governor Wallace in this very difficult time, uh, will have not only the very best medical care, uh, but that, uh, he can recover from the wounds that he has received. PEGGY WALLACE KENNEDY, Daughter: My grandmother, his mother, would tell me stories about on Saturday, they would always find daddy downtown at the, at the, at the center of the town where the courthouse was, or where people gathered and played checkers and that kind of thing, just shaking people’s hands. And I do believe he has changed. And she was younger, and I’m sure she came on strong to George Wallace. Uh, I think he had hopes that he would walk again, as we all did. KENNEDY: It was very, very hard to, um, st-- stand there at her casket in the rotunda of the capitol while all of these people were around you and you're, you’re having to view her with no privacy. But he could be perfectly reasonable in a conversation with a black person. He was not a factor in the election, and, um, we didn’t respond to him. Gary Orren I just uh, I couldn’t talk about it anymore. Reporter: How about your supporters? Chief Advisor: Even as president, Franklin Roosevelt had disguised his own paralysis with carefully choreographed entrances. Search for more papers by this author. So, in a sense Nixon gets what he wants. ABC News VideoSource And I think he decided at that point that he would exploit race to the extent it took necessary that we -- that he considered necessary to win. He used the governorship to stay in the public eye, announcing to the national press that he’d always been a moderate and no longer believed in racial segregation. We had not known that we were better than anybody. I think the way all good uh, Southern evangelicals or evangelicals do, "I’m at the end of my life, now what have I accomplished, what have I done, what have I done right, what have I done wrong." Martin Luther King stuck down only months earlier. GREENHAW: There was this atmosphere, eh, that just covered the capitol, that anybody who was not part of the Wallace team was on the outs. If you needed an acrobat to be president, I would not be qualified but you don’t need an acrobat to be president. He put, put the sheet up over his head, he just wasn’t going with them. NARR: For the next three years, Wallace criss-crossed Alabama, in pursuit of the governorship. And it’s the third party candidacy that’s the threat to Nixon. Lawrence Spivak: Governor, the question I asked, however, was can these students be enrolled at the University of Alabama without the use of troops? Get the latest on new films and digital content, learn about events in your area, and get your weekly fix of American history. I’m known as one of the leading civil rights lawyers in the South. He always came out swinging. And he said, "Seymore, you know why I lost that governor’s race?" Bob Thompkins Settin' The Woods On Fire. I remember speaking at Harvard. It was huge. GEORGE WALLACE SUPPORTERS: We want Wallace! The Depression years made an indelible mark on his life. And I said, "You must be out of your mind. Archive Photos John Hazard But along with the corruption of the Wallace administration came popular programs for education, and help for the poor, black and white. Special Thanks to Spider Martin Civil Rights Collection If I haven’t won it now, I’ll, I can’t win it with one day of campaigning." And he begins to think about, uh, his life. NARR: In 1952 Wallace won election as a circuit judge in Clayton, Alabama. BUCHANAN: He has never gotten credit for being the, the figure he was and having the influence he did upon subsequent politics, uh, Nixon and Agnew, the Reagan movement, uh, frankly the Buchanan movement, the Perot movement, and the others. INGRAM: That pugnacious, glaring expression. Chestnut. Only one local circuit judge refused to comply, for the new hard-line segregationist, it was show time. This march will not continue. Thirteen/WNET, New York Interns: RAY JENKINS, Alabama Journal : He had a reputation as something of a quote "socialist." He is a very sensible man. John Patterson, the state’s attorney general, had used the courts to drive civil rights activists out of Alabama. NARR: In the end, Richard Nixon -- and not George Wallace -- would become the nation’s 37th President. Clayton Historical Preservation Authority Random House, Inc. They let her come home because that was my, uh, little sister’s birthday. And they, uh, came in the room, and said, "Good morning, Governor." We want Wallace! Uh, he was never a serious drinker, but it didn’t take but a couple of drinks to throw him off balance, um. NARR: Cornelia accompanied George on many of his trips, including preparations for the run for president in 1972. Alison Kennedy NBC News Archives Man: It will only take a minute to register if you’d like to register for George C. Wallace. Series Editor: But they shared few interests. Bless your heart. In 1968 the man in the eye of the storm who set the agenda , law and order, the danger of big government and the minds of many the politics of race was the third party candidate for President hoping to deadlock the election. It’s really hard. GEORGE WALLACE: Bye. They were sure to be blinded and disfigured. And, uh, I didn’t really think he was attractive then -- when I was younger, but [laughs] uh, at the time I saw him and got reacquainted with him when I was not a married person and a single person. And I said, "What’s wrong, Sag? He’d be a martyr now. She started thinking about, uh, school education that she’d be in charge of when she became governor. Wallace, in turn, hoped to find a place on the Democratic ticket. And I prayed that they should be removed but they were not. Winner of the Sundance 2000 Film Festival Special Jury Prize, "George Wallace: Settin’ the Woods on Fire" is produced by Paul Stekler and Dan McCabe and written by Steve Fayer ("Eyes on the Prize," "Vote for Me," "Rock & Roll," "Nixon"). That’s the great tragedy of George Wallace. And overflowing crowds. NARR: Part of the Wallace success was due to a new, fiery, hard-hitting style of campaigning, the result of a new speechwriter. Add the first question. JENKINS: Never had any interest in politics. NARR: Less than forty-eight hours after Wallace’s victory, President Nixon addressed the nation. So, he came down and he started shaking hands. Chris Pullman He lived politics, he ate politics, he absorbed it. Publicity : NARR: Wallace was going to need every dollar. They didn’t want him dead, uh, and that they-- there was no rejoicing among black Alabamians that George Wallace had been shot. We have free textbooks in the schools. Claire Jones NARR: The Nixon’s plan seemed to be working. JONES: Wallace was as mad, I believe, as I’ve ever seen him. Get out of the way!!! He was very attractive to me then. And then, all of a sudden, you find she was a, a tough lady, too. "David’s Lamentation" The Wallace Foundation GEORGE WALLACE: Uh, uh, domestic tranquility will prevail and there will be no need for troops. There are more today of us than there are of them. THE WALLACE FAMILY And I says, "Wallace, you see? GEORGE WALLACE: I don’t know what my supporters say. And it made the difference. NARR: Wallace’s opponent had other ideas. John Shelton Reed NARR: The violence in Selma had immediate impact. You heard that everywhere. And he said, "No, we’re more concerned about the Rockefeller interest in the trilateral commission." I mean, he looked horrible up there, suspended above this convention. It didn’t matter that he loses. CORNELIA.WALLACE: There was a lot of physical attraction, very passionate kind of love between us. FLOWERS: I don’t think George changed later on in his life. Special Footage from "Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment" That he really believed that Wallace was already thinking about the time in the future when blacks would be voting in Alabama, and he wanted to be there on the ground floor. Now more that ever, every win, every loss in the battle against civil rights in Alabama would ring across the country. But in the fifties and sixties, he went by the name Asa Carter and was the founder of his own Ku Klux Klan organization. NARR: The courtship with Cornelia remained discreet -- while Wallace planned his next (political) move. NARR: Judge Frank Johnson, the old friend Wallace had vilified to rekindle his own political career, had issued the ruling. But he did not realize that it was the tough mean issue that it was in nineteen hundred and fifty-eight. [Reporters fire off questions, "Governor, give us the peace sign."] And, and I’m not for token integration or any kind of integration. After graduating from the University of Alabama and serving in the Air Force in World War II, Wallace began the climb that would take him from state representative to circuit court judge to the 1958 race for governor. and "Uh, if you understand, would you squeeze my hand." Linda Reed And some of you younger may not realize that I paid a pretty high price in 1972. Inevitably, this is going to have to be a no-holds barred campaign, involving divided insiders and influenced by prominent, interested outsiders. Chestnut from now on, you will address him as Mr. © 1965 Los Angeles Times His vigorous defense of states’ rights and opposition to the pending Civil Rights Bill in the U.S. Congress resonated with many voters outside of the South, and Wallace’s campaign easily outperformed the dire predictions of his opponents. He’s really a better fellow than I thought. Its investigation was closing in on George’s brother, Gerald. NARR: At age 14, George Wallace had vowed to someday become governor. And I asked her point-blank one time, I said, were you really thinking about divorcing George? Uh, nothing-- he couldn’t have written a better scenario than the confrontation that came the next year with, uh, Federal Judge Frank Johnson here in Montgomery. And Dr. Hutchinson indicated that she, she, she hears you. Tom Sorlie And now they have created themselves a Frankenstein monster and the chickens are coming home to roost all over this country. These maps show the results of the 1964 and 1972 Democratic primaries and the 1968 presidential election. He hit ‘em at a time when they were looking for somebody to lead ‘em. NARR: In later years, he’d be known as Forrest Carter, a writer claiming Native-American descent. INGRAM: There was just no contest because of-- they loved her but more than that, they wanted George Wallace to remain in power. CARTER: In his life, I think a turning point was when he had his first crush on a girlfriend. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again." Lebourg Collection INGRAM: On election day, I'm sitting in my office, and I got a call from North Alabama from a campaign worker who says, "The Wallace people are just going up and down the line saying, ‘Remember you're white, remember you're white.’" He said, "What can I say? We seem to have a phobia about nuclear weapons. What is important is not, so much winning as it is being a fighter, standing up, defending your rights, showing how tough you are and, and in a sense, getting Americans to respect you. Nixon: I am sending a special message to the Congress tomorrow. How is it that a demagogue, insulting twenty million black people daily on the television, can rise to the heights that Wallace did? NARR: Even as Wallace sought to bring the issues that had driven his career to the fore... He approved of the death sentence for a black man convicted of stealing a dollar and ninety-five cents -- from a white woman. Paul Stekler I'm surprised there hasn't been a big Hollywood movie from his life yet... it would surely be an Oscar winner if done right. Mason Daring I think that for mother it was different. After the shooting, Wallace’s life changed. I will destroy my enemy when I destroy myself. He hadn’t defied anybody. Man, you look sick." And I said, "You can't. Format: Audio CD. Party officials had extended the invitation hoping to woo Wallace supporters. The very idea that the President and his advisors are planning to do this, I think, in part, reflects not only the political machinations of the White House, but it also reflects the fear that Wallace instilled in the Nixon White House. 1 of 1 people found this review helpful. Rev. 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