Last week was the 40th anniversary of Alabama Governor George Wallace standing at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in a symbolic attempt to block two black students, Vivian Malone and James Hood, from enrolling at the school.
While the showdown between Wallace and the Kennedy Administration was but one
of a series of events that made 1963 a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement,
the unintended consequences significantly altered the landscape of American politics.
The confrontation with Wallace forced Kennedy into reluctant action. To that
point, Kennedy had done little in the way of championing civil rights. It was
a political hot potato that he wanted no part, at least until after the 1964 campaign.
But Wallace’s defiant nature made it impossible for Kennedy to remain on
the safe political shores of inaction. With television cameras displaying
the horror of police dogs and fire hoses attacking unarmed and nonviolent demonstrators,
America under the Kennedy Administration in 1963 looked no different than South
African Apartheid. Kennedy’s desire to hold off on civil rights was
no match for the crossroads of history.
On the night of June 11, 1963 Kennedy gave one of the most important speeches
during his brief term in office: “ 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.”
Wallace had already begun to set the wheels of the confrontation in place when
earlier that year he told white Alabama voters, "segregation today, segregation
tomorrow, segregation forever.”
During his campaign for governor, Wallace talked of physically putting himself
between the schoolhouse door and any attempt to integrate Alabama's all-white
public schools. So when a federal judge ordered Malone and Hood be admitted
to the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa that summer, Wallace had the perfect
opportunity to fulfill his campaign pledge.
Wallace understood there was little he could do to stop the integration of the
University of Alabama once the federal government stepped in. Thus, his defiance
was nothing more than a political opportunity to play to the crowd.
Directly facing Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, Wallace declared
that day, “The unwelcomed, unwanted, unwarranted and force-induced intrusion
upon the campus of the University of Alabama today of the might of the Central
Government offers frightful example of the oppression of the rights, privileges
and sovereignty of this State by officers of the Federal Government.”
Substantively, Wallace accomplished very little. He did, however, greatly contribute
to the blueprint that would transform southern allegiance from the Democratic
Party to the Republicans.
The Kennedy-Wallace confrontation was between members of the Democratic Party.
Likewise, the same was true for the majority of high profile civil rights demonstrations
that required the assistance of the federal government in the 1960’s. The
Republican Party has
since seized the opportunity.
From Nixon’s (in)famous “Southern Strategy” to George W. Bush
advocating that South Carolina flying the Confederate Flag was a state issue,
Republican nominees for president have frequently used Wallace like code language
that fanned the flames of race.
Noted Republican stalwarts such as Jesse Helms, Strom Thurmond, and Trent Lott
cut their political teeth as Democrats. Southern segregationist, key to the fortunes
of Democrats, had found a new home as so-called conservative Republicans.
The confrontation between Governor Wallace and President Kennedy produced much
more than two black students being admitted to the University of Alabama.
Kennedy became a reluctant participant of the Civil Rights Movement, and with
the legislative prowess of President Lyndon Johnson would have his civil rights
agenda passed posthumously.
Wallace remained a fixture on the national stage running for president several
times including an impressive third party run in 1968 before a paralyzing assassination
attempt in 1972. But his real contribution was the blueprint he helped create
that greatly assisted the Republican Party’s current claim on southern politics.
Not bad for someone who was merely standing in the way of progress.