Reviews for George Wallace: American Populist

The average rating for George Wallace: American Populist based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2019-11-01 00:00:00 Andrew Mccormack "For what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, but lose his soul?" Mark 8:36 As I read this book on Gov. George Wallace's life --- segregationist; populist; last third party candidate to win votes in the Electoral College within the last 50 years; successful --- and one of the nation's longest serving --- state governors --- this verse kept crossing my mind. It struck me how much of Wallace's story could have been truly inspiring, yet will be marred, probably perpetually, by his acts on reaching those heights to which he aspired and achieved. Growing up in grinding poverty, Wallace had to work very hard, any way he could just to get an education and build even a modest future. And this he did --- his pugnacity, initiative, cunning, and work ethic really shine throughout, achieving a college education and building a law career, as well as family with his new bride, Lurleen. Coming in the midst of this important point in his life, there was World War 2. Perhaps because of my own background as a naval aviator, I found parts of Wallace's service both admirable and puzzling. Because of his education, he was selected for an Army Air Force commission and flight training, and likely would have become a bomber pilot --- but asked to drop it because he could not stand the program's demanding disciplinary regimen. I just found it hard to believe --- that one would turn such an opportunity down just because of something like that --- the opportunity to become a pilot! Instead, he was reassigned for training as a B29 flight engineer, only to be nearly stricken dead with meningitis. A lesser man might well have used this as an excuse to gain a medical deferment from further military service given how much it debilitated Wallace, yet he recovered and continued on to service honorably and bravely, winning the Air Medal. On discharge, Wallace set out to build a political career, achieving election as a local state judge, and using this as a springboard for his gubernatorial ambitions. In comparison with the standards of the Jim Crow South, as a judge, George Wallace was an evenhanded judge ---- showing little or no bias for one race or the other, and, as a practical man, Wallace seemed to have no ideological racist leanings. Yet, his ambition ran to greater heights --- and with Alabama in the 1950s effectively being a one party state under the Democratic Party with black citizens disenfranchised as a voting bloc --- this was the framework within which Wallace or any other candidate had to work. In his first attempt at getting elected governor of Alabama, his opponent cast him as a racial moderate. Had Wallace accepted his lot, perhaps stayed as a voice of moderation and reason, he might have done the right thing --- and lived out his days in honorable obscurity. Yet, in his next effort, Wallace took on the persona for which he will always be remembered --- as the fiery segregationist --- and this worked. He was elected to his first term as governor, and then proceeded to do battle with the Federal Government and Federal judges against their mandates and rulings for Alabama to begin desegregation of its schools as well as overturning Alabama's various other Jim Crow laws. If people likely remember George Wallace at all, it's the memorable scene in the movie "Forrest Gump" showing him personally blocking the entrance of the University of Alabama to prevent black students from registering in accordance with a Federal court order, for classes there. This really was a potentially dangerous confrontation -- one that involved state authorities potentially openly defying with defiance and force Federal marshals and other authorities sent to manage the crisis -- one that could have resulted in growing and escalating violence or even insurrection throughout much of the South. As I read this account of the brinksmanship here, I developed a new esteem for the role of Robert Kennedy in his role as the Attorney-General at management of this in handling Wallace, and de-escalating things --- yet keeping the ball moving forward towards desegregation. In him, Wallace found a clever, calm opponent who ultimately let Wallace get away with making a show of resistance while merely enrolling the students elsewhere at a different building on the campus Like a lot of Wallace's segregationist efforts, they made great show, inflamed the support of his base of Southern whites -- but ultimately did nothing to thwart the progress of the Civil Rights Movement. Having said that, this came at a price, and I don't think, until I read this book as well as others on the Civil Rights Era, how much violence there was. No, it wasn't a full shooting war, but there were a lot more casualties and deaths from the struggle than likely most in my generation and younger ones really appreciate. And I think that Wallace bears some blame for that. Did he create the racism leading to the worst abuses in places like Selma and Montgomery? No, but he did little either to discourage it and nothing to fight it. One would think that such a man with the tide of history seemingly so much against him would have run his course and faded into the ignominious obscurity that would overtake his contemporaries such as Orval Faubus and Lester Maddox. But George Wallace was very charismatic as well as doggedly clever in pointing his own critics blatant hypocrisies --- via speaking tours and interviews -- such as their demanding desegregated schools--- yet putting their own children in private schools without a single colored child or teacher; drawing attention to their own communities use of redlining to keep blacks from living in their residential areas; the new media critics who decried the South's laws, yet had never in their history had a black journalist on their own staffs. Wallace began to build a national following over time, and, with presidential aspirations, began to become competitive for this. However, faced with term limits as Governor, Wallace had his wife, Lurleen run. Despite having little education, Lurleen actually did do creditably as both a candidate and as governor. In this bio, she really emerges as a good person, faithful as a wife and a mother to their children, and even willing to help her husband by assuming a role for which she never aspired. She would later die of breast cancer during her term, and her last days as well as the grief of George Wallace and her family during this time was truly moving. I won't go into to too much more detail on the rest. Suffice to say, that Wallace did surprisingly gain most of the Deep South's electoral votes in the 1968 election, and, had he gained a few more, might even thrown the election into a tie requiring a break via the House of Representatives. He did this by turning the down the racial bit, and by drawing attention to the increasing reach, abuses of power, and incompetence of a growing Federal Government that more and more Americans were becoming apprehensive about. Then seeking reelection as Governor in 1970, Wallace went right back to his racial appeals --- very vile and nasty. In 1972, Wallace again attempted to become President, this time via nomination as the Democratic candidate -- only for this to ended by an assassination attempt that left him paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. Yet, not given to introspection in the past, this does seem to have been a turning point in this man's life. Wallace does seem to have moderated his racial views -- so much so that he actually became the instrument by which Alabama healed of its racist past, its state offices achieved racial balance, and state programs served all Alabama citizens equally. In his subsequent elections, Wallace -- the man who once cried out in his inaugural address "Segregation yesterday, segregation today, segregation forever" -- received the endorsement of such black groups as the state NAACP because of his support of social programs and help and interest in the progress of Alabama's black population. Yet, Wallace's racist past will always likely be what most who remember him at all, remember him for. Towards the end of his life, Wallace seemed to seek conciliation and forgiveness for this, and, to their credit, many of the civil rights leaders who opposed him reconciled and did forgive. While I've not had a high opinion of Rev. Jesse jackson in the past, the account of the meeting between Jackson and Wallace, now old and broken and contrite, was touching, particularly the graciousness and compassion that Jackson displayed during it. So I think that this is a very good biography. While the author, Stephen Lesher, clearly is no fan of George Wallace, he does a great job at keeping objective in giving us the facts of his subject's life -- showing all the flaws, but all showing the man's strengths as well as the underlying events driving his political rise.

Review # 2 was written on 2014-06-01 00:00:00 David Skaar George C. Wallace came up the hard way. He was desperately poor and 'scrambled for any job that literally might earn him a few pennies. At the same time, everything he did was with an eye to-ward future political power. Even as a youth, when one job required traveling all around the county inoculating dogs for rabies, he was making friends and winning potential votes. Many remembered him years later and voted for him in droves. In some ways he was quite progressive. As a first-term legislator he sponsored and ramrodded a bill to provide low cost vocational post-secondary education for blacks and whites (separate of course) and many of the issues he favored were populist in nature. In WW II he enrolled as a cadet to learn to |fly but wound up as a flight engineer on a B- 9 flying several missions over Japan toward the end of the war. Most flights were routine but they had several close calls with engine fires and other mechanical difficulties. Finally he had enough and refused to get in an airplane. His colonel, who could have had him court-martialed, instead sent him to the base hospital where he was diagnosed with battle-fatigue. Forever after he was white-knuckled on every campaign flight. Stephan Lesher's biography of Wallace brings Wallace and his role in American politics very readably to light. Wallace will be forever recalled as the man who enshrined racism as a political stratagem. Clearly everything he did, every hand he shook, every statement he made, was intended to get him elected to office. The man lived politics, and during the sixties attacking civil rights was good politics in Alabama. Wallace argued then and later in 1930 that to take any other approach was political suicide. "It was not any of my making. . . .It was political suicide to offer any moderate approach. . . Alabamians are gullible for that kind of thing. . . .Give the people something to dislike and hate, create a straw man for them to fight, they'd rather be against something than for something. As long as our people are of that frame of mind and like their politics with that brand, then we're going to have people to take advantage of that kind of situation." And he did with a vengeance. It also clear from this biography, that Wallace's residential campaigns tapped a deeper malaise in the electorate as the votes he garnered during his presidential campaigns reveal. Many of his issues were used successfully in successive campaign by both Republicans and Democrats: prohibition of school busing for integration, school prayer by constitutional amendment, tax reductions for the middle class (to be paid for by taxing church-owned property, and law and order, to name few. In fact, Kevin Phillips considered Wallace as "the first national tax-revolt leader [and] the man also in the vanguard of so many other populist causes." Lesher reiterates that no president was elected between 1963 and 1992 "without clearly embracing and articulating. ... the Wallace issues. . . .George Wallace's wish to be rehabilitated by history may or may not be realized - but history already has substantiated his idea of history."