The Wallace Legacy

Abstract

Dan Carter, William Rand Kenan, Jr., Professor of History at Emory University and author of prize-winning biography of George Wallace, has written a slender (134 pages) book about a topic from which most historians shrink: recent American politics. In spring of 1991 Carter took some time off from his Wallace biography to deliver a series of lectures, on which his new book is based, at Louisiana State University. In course of his research on Wallace, Carter had become convinced that shadow of fiery politician reached far beyond his own national career from 1964 to 1976 (p. xiii). Looking at campaigns of George Bush, policies of Ronald Reagan, and rhetoric of Newt Gingrich, Carter thought he glimpsed, albeit in modified form, Wallace appeal-the jabs at civil rights agitators, attacks on anarchists and long-hairs, angry denunciations of intellectual elites (pp. 18-20). Carter decided in his lectures to trace the path by which politics of racial conservatism broadened into a general program of resistance to changes sweeping American society-in other words, to examine legacy of George Wallace (p. xiv). On a wickedly hot day in early summer of 1963, as civil rights protests roiled South, Governor Wallace of Alabama took his famous stand in schoolhouse door. With cameras rolling and over two hundred reporters looking on, United States Assistant Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach walked swiftly towards entrance to Carmichael Hall on University of Alabama campus, where Wallace had staked out his position. A former boxer, Wallace responded to unwanted meddler by raising his hand, decrying this illegal and unwarranted action by Central Government, and refusing to allow Katzenbach and two black students waiting in a government sedan at curbside to enter school (p. 4). Two hours later crisis was over. Wallace had returned to his office in