When i was growing up in Alabama, it was well known inside the state, but apparently not outside the state, that Wallace was not really a racist, he was a very successful politician.
His handlers and his constituents told him that they didn't want blacks in white schools, etc... and that's exactly what he tried to do, maintain the status quo inside a changing world. Now, calling it your job don't make it right...
The irony is that he was almost killed by the same people that found him to be unsuccessful at his primary mission - to keep the blacks out.
Ever since I could form my first thoughts and in my first memories, I saw, after kennedy and MLK were murdered, the riots and the marches in Alabama. I also have a very vivid memory of my dad, who was one of the biggest racists ever born on this planet, screaming about how them n*ggers were this and they were that. And 'why do they have to inflict themselves on good honest white people'?
Now, I never knew one single good honest white or black person in those days, including my dad. We were all poor and not worth a shit for anything. I just assumed there was some white people out there somewhere that fit that category.
Alabama today is just like Neil Young said, They're a cadillac, with one wheel in the ditch and one wheel on the track. There are great race relations in some quarters and in some quarters, it's just like the 1950's still.
Personally, I'll be glad when the rest of those old racists die off.
