Chapter 12
The Most Dangerous Racist in America
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[George Wallace is] perhaps the most dangerous racist in America. . . . I am not sure that he believes all the poison he preaches, but he is artful enough to convince others that he does.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., interview, 1963
I, George C. Wallace, as Governor of the State of Alabama, have by my action raised issues between the Central Government and the Sovereign State of Alabama, which said issues should be adjudicated in the manner prescribed by the Constitution of the United States; and now being mindful of my duties and responsibilities under the Constitution of the United States, the Constitution of the State of Alabama, and seeking to preserve and maintain the peace and dignity of this State, and the individual freedoms of the citizens thereof, do hereby denounce and forbid this illegal and unwarranted action by the Central Government.
Governor George Wallace[42]
After the children’s march in the streets of downtown Birmingham, Dr. King and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference drew heavy criticism for putting children in harm’s way. In the days that followed, however, Dr. King’s reputation soared. Shortly after Bull Connor lost his job as commissioner of public safety, the Jim Crow signs came down in my city. Some of Birmingham’s public facilities were now open to black people. But desegregation came slowly to Birmingham. George Wallace still fought integration fiercely from the governor’s office, claiming each state should have the right to decide what was best for its citizens.
“Segregation today! Segregation tomorrow! Segregation forever!” he had promised the white people of Alabama earlier that January. And he meant it.
Wallace told his supporters that he’d physically block schoolhouse doors rather than allow black children and youth to enroll into Alabama’s all-white public schools and state colleges.
What makes him hate black people so much? I wondered at the time. It didn’t really occur to me that he would carry out his commitment so literally.
But one month after the children’s march, that’s exactly what George Wallace did. When a federal judge ordered the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa to register and enroll two Alabama-born black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, Wallace placed his body in front of the Foster Auditorium door and physically kept them from entering.
June 11, 1963, three months before the church bombing, proved a typical sweltering summer day in Alabama. Crowds of cheering and sweating white supporters and national news reporters filled the campus. Television cameras rolled. Alabama state troopers surrounded Wallace as he made his defiant stand against desegregation in Alabama’s all-white public schools. Wallace claimed it was his state’s constitutional right, not the federal government’s right, to operate Alabama’s public schools, colleges, and universities. The Tuscaloosa News reported later that the governor “squeezed every suspenseful moment of drama from the occasion.”[43]
President Kennedy had anticipated Wallace’s stand and in response sent Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and a swarm of federal marshals to Tuscaloosa. Katzenbach told Wallace, loud enough for all to hear, to abide by the federal court order. “From the outset, Governor,” Katzenbach said, “all of us have known that the final chapter of this history will be the admission of these students.”[44]
When ordered to “step aside and let the black students enter the university,” Wallace refused to move. Katzenbach telephoned President Kennedy, who immediately federalized the Alabama National Guard. Wallace then had no choice. He reluctantly stepped aside.
That evening on national television, my family and I watched a distressed United States president address the nation:
“I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents,” John F. Kennedy said. “This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened.”
Here is a powerful white man, I thought as I listened, the leader of our nation, standing up for the rights of my people!
“It ought to be possible,” Kennedy continued, “for American students of any color to attend any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops.”
Does this mean I’ll actually have the choice to go to a white college—anywhere I choose? I wondered.
“It ought to be possible for American consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores, without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street,” the president stated, “and it ought to be possible for American citizens of any color to register to vote in a free election without interference or fear of reprisal.”
You mean I could walk up the grand stairway at Pizitz department store and order a hot dog, French fries, and a Coke in the mezzanine café? I marveled to myself. And the waitress will, by law, have to serve me?
“It ought to be possible, in short, for every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be treated,” Kennedy said. “But this is not the case.”
At that moment, I loved and admired the president even more than before.
He and his brother Bobby Kennedy seemed to genuinely care about people of color. As I listened to my president talk to the nation about segregation and its unfairness to black people, I thought, Here is a president who understands. Maybe he’ll do something about all this mess! Maybe I could even go to the University of Alabama or Howard College or even an Ivy League School!
That evening President Kennedy told the nation that one hundred years of delay had passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves and that their heirs weren’t yet fully free from injustice, social discrimination, and economic oppression.
Then he added, “And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.”
As I listened to the president’s powerful speech on Civil Rights, I felt a sense of great relief and sudden hope. My people had been wronged, and now somebody in an important position was finally coming alongside to offer us some support.
The president can make people change, I figured. Black people can’t tell white people what to do. But if Kennedy, a white man—the president of the United States—says that things need to change, surely white people will listen to him.
My family and I stayed glued to the television that night. Excitement and hope swelled in our hearts. Kennedy told the nation that segregation was a moral issue—“as old as the Scriptures and . . . as clear as the American Constitution.”
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From John F. Kennedy’s Civil Rights Address
This afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of Alabama National Guard was required on the University of Alabama to carry out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro. That they were admitted peacefully on the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.
I hope that every American, regardless of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are threatened. . . .
This is not a sectional issue. Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every State of the Union, produci
ng in many cities a rising tide of discontent that threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right. We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution.
The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?
One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free.[45]
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Then he asked a question I will never forget: “Who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?”[46]
Maybe things will change here in Alabama!
Some things did change in my city. At the end of July I dressed up in my freshly starched white Sunday dress and slipped on my shiny black patent-leather church shoes. With my head held high, I walked to the Pizitz department store in downtown Birmingham. I saw the white people eating in the mezzanine’s café at the top of the grand spiral staircase. I smelled the food. I slowly and gracefully climbed the stairs, entered the café, and sat down at a table. Then I ordered a hot dog, French fries with ketchup, and a Coke.
This might seem like a small thing to some people, I thought as I sipped my Coke and paid the bill. But it’s a big deal to me!
That day I also thought about my grandmother and her final days in the Princeton Hospital. Maybe now, Mama Lessie, no other black child’s beloved grandmother will have to die beneath the dripping water pipes in a cold, dingy hospital basement.
Students James Hood and Vivian Malone eventually were admitted into the University of Alabama,[47] but George Wallace refused to accept defeat. Nothing and no one—not even the president of the United States—would thwart Wallace’s plan for continued segregation in Alabama’s public schools and universities.
Less than three months later, on September 9, 1963, Governor Wallace signed Executive Order Number Ten of the Governor of Alabama. “Whereas,” Wallace began, “the threat of forced and unwarranted integration of the public schools of this State is detrimental to the public interest; and, whereas, integration . . . will totally disrupt and effectively destroy the educational process and constitutes an abridgment of the Civil Rights of other children attending the schools, and deprives them of the equal protection of the laws and constitutes the deprivation of their rights, liberty and property without due process of law . . .” Wallace closed the executive order with a final paragraph: “Now, therefore, I, George C. Wallace, as Governor of the State of Alabama, and in conformity with the Constitutional and statutory power vested in me as Governor of said State, do hereby order and direct that no student shall be permitted to integrate the public schools of the City of Birmingham, Alabama.”[48]
In response, on that same day, President Kennedy issued a report on desegregation in the schools of Alabama. “It should be clear,” Kennedy wrote, “that United States Government action regarding the Alabama schools will come only if Governor Wallace compels it.”
In 144 school districts in eleven Southern and border states, desegregation happened in a peaceful manner, with no need for the federal government to intervene. But in Alabama, Kennedy noted, “Governor Wallace has refused to respect either the law or the authority of local officials.”
Kennedy ended his report with the hope that Governor Wallace would comply with the desegregation order, but also the promise that the U.S. government would take whatever steps necessary to intervene should he decide not to.[49]
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From President John F. Kennedy’s Report on Desegregation in the Schools of Alabama
In 144 school districts in 11 Southern and border States, desegregation was carried out for the first time this month in an orderly and peaceful manner. Parents, students, citizens, school officials, and public officials of these areas met their responsibilities in a dignified, law-abiding way. It wasn’t necessary for the Federal Government to become involved in any of those States.
In the State of Alabama, however, where local authorities repeatedly stated they were prepared to carry out court directives and maintain public peace, Governor Wallace has refused to respect either the law or the authority of local officials. . . .
This Government will do whatever must be done to see that the orders of the court are implemented—but I am hopeful that Governor Wallace will enable the local officials and communities to meet their responsibilities in this regard, as they are willing to do.[50]
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George Wallace responded to the president’s report. He told the New York Times that, in order to stop school integration, Alabama needed “a few first-class funerals.”[51] Wallace got his “first-class funerals” less than three months later—Cynthia, Denise, and Addie’s and Carole’s.[52]
But the battle for desegregation in Alabama schools was only heating up. The school desegregation laws established in 1954 were little more than a piece of paper in Alabama because, thus far, nothing had changed. Some people would end up paying a dear price for their courageous stands against Governor Wallace and the Ku Klux Klan before the dust finally settled.
Chapter 13
The Battle Continues
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I have a dream that one day the state of Alabama, whose governor’s lips are presently dripping with the words of interposition and nullification, will be transformed into a situation where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., “I Have a Dream”
All this will not be finished in the first 100 days. Nor will it be finished in the first 1,000 days, nor in the life of this administration, nor even perhaps in our lifetimes on this planet. But let us begin.
John F. Kennedy
On the day after George Wallace made his public stand in the University of Alabama’s doorway and President Kennedy spoke on television to the nation about Civil Rights, a member of the Klan shot and killed black Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers, the field secretary for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).
Evers had attracted national attention back in the early 1960s when he led a store boycott in Jackson, Mississippi, and when he helped black student James Meredith enter the all-white University of Mississippi in 1962. As Evers pulled into the driveway of his home in Jackson, Mississippi, white supremacist and Klan member Byron De La Beckwith was hiding, waiting for Evers to step out of his car. Then, with Evers’s wife and young children watching, De La Beckwith shot him in the back. Evers died that night in his driveway.
When I heard about the assassination that evening on the television news, I worried about my own dad driving home from work. Will someone shoot Daddy in the back and leave him to die in our driveway? I wondered. But I didn’t talk to anyone about my fears. I kept them
bottled inside, hidden away from my parents and my friends.
Even at that young age, I knew I couldn’t trust the legal system to bring about justice. Byron De La Beckwith was arrested, tried, and acquitted by an all-white jury. It was the verdict we’d expected. He went free for the next thirty-one years.[53]
That incident set something off inside me—it seemed even more horrific than the other racially motivated murders that had happened recently throughout the South. I was starting to grasp how little value black people had in my country, and I knew it wasn’t right. We aren’t considered “real people” who have feelings and dreams and ambitions—people who want the best for their children, I railed to myself. Is anybody going to stand up and say, “This is wrong! We’re going to bring justice to this situation!”
I started to worry even more about my own family after Evers’s death—especially my father and four brothers. It seemed so scary to me—a man shot in the back at night, unable to defend himself, with his family watching him die in his own driveway. Surely, I thought, this is the epitome of evil: Byron De La Beckwith.
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In the midst of all the hype surrounding school desegregation, I was beginning to think seriously about where I wanted to go to college myself within the next few years.
I had always been an A student, and I loved reading and learning. The expectation from my parents and my teachers alike was that college would be a given for me. From the time I was in elementary school, my teachers saw my spelling potential—already at a twelfth grade level, according to the California Achievement Tests—and they asked my parents if they could help me develop it. For two years, from the sixth grade to the eighth grade, from two o’clock to three o’clock each school day, my teachers took me to the teachers’ lounge and individually worked with me on my spelling skills.
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