The Broken Road

by Peggy Wallace Kennedy

  Following Daddy’s departure from the Governor’s Mansion, Mama took us to our house on Lake Martin. It was a simple cottage on stilts painted green overlooking the huge lake, about a forty-five-minute drive from Montgomery. This was Mama’s retreat. She swam and fished, scaling and cleaning and cooking the fish herself. We had a powerboat. She taught me to water-ski, loved the sport herself and was good at it, weaving gracefully behind the boat in sweeping, measured curves. It was a place that offered her a reminder of how her life used to be living alongside the broken road. The cottage was her spiritual refuge, and my father appeared there only under duress.

  The morning after we arrived at the lake, I watched Mama pace up and down, first on the pier, then on the screened-in front porch. It was as if a taut wire was dragging her about as she pulled one hand through her mane of thick brown hair while nursing a cigarette in the other. A small black-and-white TV was her only connection to the outside world. She was not able to watch it herself, too nervous that there would be violence and Daddy would be hurt. One of her security guards gave her updates as the scene unfolded in Tuscaloosa. I remember her palpable fear that day, a fear that became instilled in me. I, too, felt afraid that Daddy would be hurt. Later, the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. would add to the feeling of unease and impending peril, as did the aura of hatred and bigotry that often surrounded my father’s political rallies.

  Mama’s usual security detail of one had grown to a cadre of state troopers. Yet she stood alone, separate and apart from the universe of Daddy’s politics. She was thirty-six. After that day, we would forever stand in the shadow of the schoolhouse door. And the grandchildren she would never know would one day ask why?

  Daddy’s stand in the schoolhouse door at the University of Alabama had everything to do with the long sweep of Southern history and politics. For most white folks in Alabama, and for that matter throughout the South, Daddy was a twentieth-century Robert E. Lee. In the aftermath of the Confederate surrender at Appomattox, the white Southerners who remained standing amid the tattered flags of defeat felt ennobled. They passed down from generation to generation their hatred for those who had brought utter destruction to their doorsteps in the 1860s. The mere thought of the progeny of the slaves they once owned wanting to go to white schools and to sit down to eat with white people and, most appallingly, to vote was just more than most white folks could stand. Governor Wallace was going to put those modern-day carpetbaggers, socialists, and bigwigs who thought they were better than Southern white working folks in their place.

  The months leading up to June 11 had been violent across the South. Shouting mobs of white men, women, and children. Gunshots fired in the night. Campus riots erupted in the fall of 1962 at Ole Miss over the enrollment of James Meredith. Two people were killed and more than three hundred injured.

  To my father’s credit, all this weighed heavily on him, and he was determined that the violence and mayhem that had occurred at Ole Miss would not be repeated in his state and on his watch. Toward that end, he struck a Faustian bargain with the Klan and other white supremacist groups around Tuscaloosa County. They would stand down so that he could stand up for them and for the honor of all true Southerners. Southern pride dictated that even though he lost the battle, it didn’t matter: it was the fact that he was willing to fight.

  He said he had made his “stand” to forestall the violence that had happened in September at Ole Miss. Daddy went on statewide TV and told people to keep away from Tuscaloosa. “I’m going to handle it,” he said. He negotiated with the Klan and got them to step down. Was this a principled stand to try to avert violence, or playing for political advantage? Perhaps both? I’ll never know for sure. Perhaps the fact that Daddy took the heat and diverted the anger of white Southerners was enough to justify what he did, but the world saw a Southern racist.

  Historians agree that Daddy’s “stand” was an orchestrated event agreed upon by him and the Kennedy administration. It would allow him to have his say. Everyone involved recognized that despite this “stand,” Vivian Malone and James Hood would be able to peacefully register at the University of Alabama. In the broader sweep of history and the fight for racial equality, it was just one more act in the deadly theatrics that summer. There was no turning back for him; the arc of his moral universe was set. He was now a national figure, but he was on the wrong side of history.

  Daddy knew that there was no winning of the war, but in his life and in his culture, there was no shame in losing as long as you stayed in the ring until you lay beaten and bloodied on the floor. It was the fight for the Confederacy, and it was my father and uncles pounding one another in the living room in Clio while their drunken father egged them on and their mother, whose own mother had abandoned her and sent her to live in orphanage, looked on and said nothing.

  On the night before the confrontation, Daddy stayed in a Tuscaloosa hotel. The next morning, he dressed in a gray suit and a brown-and-blue tie and got in his chauffeured old Ford to be driven over to Foster Auditorium, where 125 state police and revenue and game agents, 150 journalists, and a national television audience waited for a moment that many believed would end up with Daddy being arrested and possibly a full-scale riot. It was a sweltering hundred degrees. Daddy had a lectern placed in front of the door that Vivian Malone and James Hood would have to pass through to register for classes.

  When the cars carrying the Washington officials and the students arrived, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach met my father and began reading a proclamation signed by President Kennedy calling on Daddy to end his defiance. Daddy interrupted him: “We don’t need your speech,” he said, and launched into his own speech, which had been written by Asa Carter:

  I stand before you here today in place of thousands of other Alabamians whose presence would have confronted you had I been derelict and neglected to fulfill the responsibilities of my office. It is the right of every citizen, however humble he may be, through his chosen officials of representative government to stand courageously against whatever he believes to be the exercise of power beyond the Constitutional rights conferred upon our Federal Government.

  “I don’t know what the purpose of this show is … I ask you once again to responsibly step aside,” Katzenbach said when Daddy was done. Daddy didn’t budge. Katzenbach turned, walked down the steps, and got into the car where Malone and Hood sat waiting. The two students were driven to college dorms. Malone had lunch in the cafeteria, where she was warmly welcomed by many students.

  After listening to Daddy’s speech with mounting anger, Attorney General Robert Kennedy decided to nationalize the Alabama National Guard and send them on campus to see if that would end Daddy’s posturing. In the afternoon, Daddy stepped outside again in front of the cameras. When National Guard General Henry V. Graham told him it was his duty to use the guard to force Daddy to back off, Daddy ranted about a “military dictatorship” in the United States. “We shall now return to Montgomery,” he said in his exit line, “to continue this constitutional fight.”

  The next battlegrounds lay ahead. Daddy deployed hundreds of state troopers to the far corners of the state with orders to close any public schools that tried to enroll children of color.

  In Birmingham, three schools were closed; Lingo and six hundred state troopers stood watch. Game wardens, food inspectors, county and local law enforcement personnel, prison guards, and other state workers were pressed into service and donned the uniform of Alabama state troopers. The financial burden on the state was enormous but was never mentioned or discussed. Daddy was in complete control and no state department heads or agencies dared to stand in his way.

  As Birmingham schools were closed one by one, white students, their parents, and local townspeople rode the streets and stood on benches in front of schools, waving Confederate flags and hurling racial epithets at passersby. Jack Cash, a member of the KKK, was arrested near Ramsey High School when local police found guns, flar
es, and a meat hook in his car.

  Amid the chaos, Daddy spoke at a Labor Day picnic in Birmingham. “We are not fighting against the Negro people, we are fighting for local government and states’ rights.” At the same time, in some areas of Alabama there was an increasing number of school boards and elected officials that were weary and fearful and had come to the realization that perhaps it would be better to concede the issue and admit African American students to their local schools rather than bend to the will of their governor’s crusade.

  Daddy could feel this softening. Under the guise of maintaining peace and tranquility, he would strike first, before local elected officials and law enforcement could concede. He promoted the notion that the use of intimidation and violence was simply to maintain order and protect the safety of both black and white law-abiding citizens. On September 2, he sent state troopers to maintain order in Tuskegee and more particularly at Tuskegee High School. The county board of education was firm in its statement that there had been no threat of violence and stated that the schools would be integrated as scheduled. In spite of the decision of the board to move forward with integration, Daddy refused to accept their decision. He would have no part of it.

  But the worst was yet to come. On Sunday, September 15, the 16th Street Baptist Church at the corner of Sixth Avenue and Sixteenth Street in downtown Birmingham sat quiet as its African American congregation gathered. There was no reason to fear during precious moments of being in God’s house where no harm would surely come.

  The sun was peeking from behind the clouds at ten twenty-two that morning. Sunday school had ended. Members of the congregation were enjoying moments of conversation and fellowship. Four young girls were still on the ground floor beneath the sanctuary where their Sunday school classes met. There was no escape, no time to say goodbye when fifteen sticks of dynamite exploded.

  Carol Denise McNair, eleven years old, and Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie Mae Collins, all fourteen years old, were killed. Addie Mae’s younger sister, twelve-year-old Sarah, suffered serious injuries and was blinded in one of her eyes. Deep in my heart I believed they were like me, innocent children with probably little or no concept of the larger forces of history and hatred that would end their lives. They didn’t choose the cruel honor of becoming martyrs for a righteous cause.

  After the bombing, outrage erupted in the city. Before the day was over, a policeman had shot and killed sixteen-year-old Johnny Robinson after he was caught throwing rocks at cars and ran when the police ordered him to stop. Thirteen-year-old Virgil Ware was shot and killed by two Eagle Scouts while he was riding his bike.

  Virgil Ware and I were the same age. How would my mama have felt if it had been me? And what would my father have done to the man that let it happen? Those were the questions that I should have asked.

  On Friday, November 22, I wore a short-sleeved jumper; the forecast promised a sunny day with record-breaking temperatures in the low eighties. As usual, an Alabama state trooper, assigned to the mansion detail, drove me to school. Daddy left before me, heading first to his office at the capitol before flying to Haleyville in north Alabama to speak at the dedication of a new high school.

  After almost a year of demonstrations and violence, I hoped that with the coming of winter there would be better days ahead. Our first Thanksgiving in the Governor’s Mansion was less than a week away. Mamaw and Mr. Henry were coming on Sunday to spend the week and share our good fortune.

  It was just past two. I was sitting in my math class. The principal’s voice came on over the school intercom. “Students, can I have your attention? Please let me have your attention.” Then there was nothing. It sounded like someone was gasping for air. “We have just been informed that President Kennedy was shot and killed at one o’clock this afternoon in Dallas, Texas.”

  Our teacher sat stunned in her desk chair. She did not notice the state trooper who had entered the room. My classmates turned toward me. Curiosity? Perhaps pity? Or were their eyes accusing? I gathered my things, stared straight ahead, and followed the trooper to the car.

  As we approached the mansion gates, I turned my face away when I saw a group of reporters, some with cameras, in front of the mansion. The trooper pulled around in back, and I walked up the steps and into the kitchen, where there were usually bustling cooks. Now, no one. The maids who seemed to always be on the move had disappeared as well. The mansion lay quiet and low.

  I walked upstairs. A television offered the only light in the darkened family room. Mama was sitting in a straight-backed chair, staring at the television screen. Standing around her were the African American cooks, maids, and groundskeepers who lived and worked at the mansion. Everyone was crying.

  11

  Picture Perfect

  The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.

  —Eudora Welty

  After that dark moment, in the early days of 1964, living behind the gates of the Governor’s Mansion, I felt optimistic and hopeful. Our family was often all together, and I had the kind of life that I had always imagined my friends had. When Daddy was home, I felt no obligation to challenge him on issues relating to his politics of race and segregation, although by this point I knew that his politics would never be my politics and that they ran counter to what I knew in every fiber of my being was just and kind.

  I know that I was only fourteen, but now, looking back, I sometimes wonder if I should have stood against my father. Did my birthright obligate me to do more? Was I lost in the trappings of the advantages I now see? It seemed to me that we had burst into glorious bloom. Should I have felt uneasy standing amid so much grief with a smile on my face?

  One of the things I distinctly recall about this period is that Mama became confident in herself. It was a time for her to reap the benefits from her many years investing in and believing in Daddy. He had promised that one day he would be governor of Alabama and he had delivered.

  Mama began to gather a small group of friends around her. They were a mix of women from Clayton who, along with their husbands, had followed us to Montgomery, others she met during the campaign, and the wives of our security detail. Some of the husbands would reap the rewards of being within the Wallace circle, but Mama’s friends expected nothing of her in return other than enjoying being in her company, and, of course, gossiping about the endless intrigues of the Wallace family.

  Early in her career as a candidate’s wife, Mama grew accustomed to women in Sunday dresses with matching hats making small talk. Crystal punch bowls sat on dining room tables. There were green, yellow, and pink party mints and finger sandwiches. To most of the exclusively female guests at this endless string of events, it would have been grossly impolite to launch into the matter of politics—that was a man’s job. And for other women, there was always the potential for embarrassment should they become flushed and tongue-tied while talking to Mama about her handsome, powerful, charismatic husband.

  After moving into the Governor’s Mansion, Mama expected me to attend the teas and receptions when I was available and at home. “Peggy Sue, this is good practice for you. Stand over here by me and introduce yourself to the guests as they shake your hand.”

  I was amazed at Mama’s ability to always make people comfortable. She had a knack for pulling people in with a smile or finding common ground. I often heard her say “I know just what you mean” or “I would have done the same thing.”

  Her down-home style of clothing and her affinity for store-bought jewelry were looked down on by more fashion-conscious women. But she was mostly embraced as someone who was just “like one of us.” Even Daddy sometimes commented on how popular Mama had become.

  There was one woman who was particularly close to Mama. During the 1962 campaign, Mama met Sybil Simon at a house party in Montgomery. Her husband was in the liquor business and managed a local country club. Sybil was worldly in a sophisticated Southern way. She had impeccable manners and was a w
onderful storyteller, a Steel Magnolia kind of woman. Like Mama, she wore gloves to church and would then sit out in the backyard drinking whiskey in pedal pushers while playing poker. She and Mama would float out on the lake on inner tubes with cold beers in their hands. They were caustic, hilarious, and tough. Sybil’s skin was ruddy and tanned. She was always on the move and she spoke with a gravelly Southern accent. She was an observer of other people—from a distance. Some found her to be too direct, getting to the point without meaningless chatter. She preferred menthol cigarettes and midafternoon and early evening cocktails over bridge and tea cakes and champagne. She was less enthralled with Daddy than most.

  Sybil and Mama were both rugged and no-nonsense beneath their sheeps’ coats of Southern gentility. While they often stood in the shadow of their husbands, they knew who was really in charge. I used to hear Sybil say, “Just let him think he’s in charge so he will stay out of our way.” After Mama died, Sybil Simon was always there to remind me of who Mama was.

  Not long after their first meeting, Sybil came to work at the mansion as Mama’s secretary. Mama would often sit on a small French sofa besides Sybil’s desk to while away what little free time she may have had.

  On one side of the fireplace there was a wall cabinet that was not readily visible to a casual observer. It became the perfect place for Sybil and Mama to store a stash of bourbon and scotch. Although Daddy had specifically promised to the voters that there would be no liquor in the mansion as long as he was governor, Mama and Sybil regularly had cocktails in either the office or just outside on the wide veranda overlooking the mansion grounds. Sybil would talk with Mama about anything but Daddy; she was wise to hold her tongue. However, whether spoken or not, she surmised early on that her employer’s husband had a mean streak a mile long.