George Wallace

At 79 years old, George Wallace has this physical status:

George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919-September 13, 1998), an American politician who served as Alabama's 45th governor for four terms from 1919 to 1998.

He advocated for "low-grade industrial growth, low taxes, and trade schools" during his tenure.

He ran for the presidency three times, once as an American Independent Party candidate, but unsuccessfully every time.

He is best known for his ferocious segregationist and nationalist views.

Wallace, nicknamed "the most dangerous race in America" and adamantly opposed segregation during the Civil Rights Movement, saying in his 1963 address that he wanted "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever" in Clio, Alabama. He gained the election to the Alabama House of Representatives and served as a state judge after the war.

In the 1958 Alabama gubernatorial election, Wallace first ran for the Democratic nomination.

Early life

Wallace, the first of four children, was born in Clio, southeastern Alabama, to George Corley Wallace and his partner, Mozelle (Smith). He was the third of five generations to bear the name "George Wallace." Since his parents disliked the term "junior," he was named "George C" to distinguish him from his father, George, and his grandfather, a physician. During World War I, Wallace's father left college to embark on a life of agriculture, although food costs were high. When his father died in 1937, his mother had to sell their farmland in order to pay current mortgages. Wallace was born as a Methodist.

Wallace was captivated by politics from the age of ten. He came out of a contest to serve as a page in the Alabama Senate in 1935 and had firmly predicted that he would be governor one day. Wallace went to law school in 1937 at the University of Alabama School of Law in Tuscaloosa, where he first excelled in high school and then moved directly to law school. He was a member of the Delta Chi fraternity. He crossed paths with Frank M. Johnson Jr., who was a much more liberal politician in terms of social issues and racial issues. Chauncey Sparks, who later became a conservative governor, was also known to Wallace. These men had an effect on their personal politics, reflecting the ideals of both leaders even before he was elected. In 1942, he obtained his Bachelor of Laws degree.

Wallace was accepted by the US Army Air Forces early in 1943 for pilot training (USAAF). Wallace suffered from life-threatening spinal pains immediately after, but a quick medical intervention with sulfa drugs saved his life. He was then left with partial hearing loss and permanent nerve injury, and was instead trained as a flight engineer. Wallace, who was stationed in the Mariana Islands as part of the Twentieth Air Force, participated in air raids on Japan and rose to the rank of staff sergeant. Wallace was released early in 1945 on medical account due to "severe anxiety" and a 10% disability pension for "psychoneurosis." (General Curtis LeMay, who was his running mate in the 1968 presidential election, commanded the Twentieth Air Force.)

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Early career

Wallace, a 19-year-old boy, was instrumental in his grandfather's triumph as a probate judge in 1938. He was appointed as one of Alabama's assistant attorneys general in 1945, and in May 1946, he ran for his first election as a member of the Alabama House of Representatives. He was once regarded as a moderate on racial issues at the time. Despite protesting President Harry S. Truman's proposed civil rights agenda, he did not attend the Dixiecrat walk out at the convention. Wallace viewed it as a violation of states' rights. The Dixiecrats won Alabama in the 1948 general election, having rallied behind Governor Strom Thurmond of South Carolina. Wallace excused his inability to walk out of the 1948 convention due to political causes in his inaugural address as governor.

In 1952, he became the Circuit Judge of the Third Judicial Circuit of Alabama. He was nicknamed "the fighting little judge," a nod to his former boxing association. Regardless of the plaintiff's ethnicity, he had a reputation for fairness. It was common for judges in the area to refer to black lawyers by their first names, but black lawyers were still referred to as "Mister"; black lawyer J. L. Chestnut later said that "Judge George Wallace was the most liberal judge in front of whom I had ever served. In a courthouse, he was the first judge in Alabama to call me 'Mister'.

Wallace, on the other hand, obtained injunctions to avoid the removal of segregation signs from rail terminals, becoming the first Southern judge to do so. In addition, Wallace blocked federal attempts to audit Barbour County voter lists, despite civil rights groups' efforts to broaden voter registration of blacks. In 1959, he was charged with criminal contempt of court.

Wallace, a judge, gave blacks probation, although it may have cost him the 1958 gubernatorial election.

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