Alabama politics has been affected by presidential assassination attempts
OPINION —
America has a long history of presidential assassinations and assassination attempts.
The two most notable, as well as history changing, were the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, our 16th president, and John F. Kennedy, our 35th president.
I remember vividly the sad and poignant saga of Kennedy’s assassination. It was a tragic event. The scenes are indelibly planted into the memories of those of us who are old enough to remember. A short time later his brother, Robert F. Kennedy, was assassinated while running for president. The 1960s were a tumultuous decade.
In recent decades, President Ronald Reagan was shot and recovered without any complications. Presidents Gerald Ford and George H.W. Bush were attacked. Closer to home, our own Gov. George C. Wallace was mortally shot during a presidential foray, but remarkably survived, although he was left paralyzed.
Wallace was in the middle of his third term as governor of our state. He was known as the most ardent segregationist in the nation. He had parlayed this notoriety into becoming a national presidential candidate. He was garnering large and fervent fiery crowds on the campaign trail. He was speaking at a rally in a parking lot in Laurel, Maryland, in May of 1972, when a crazed gunman named Arthur Bremer shot him several times and pierced numerous vital organs. Most people would not have survived. He was hospitalized in Maryland for over a month with it being touch and go as to whether he would live or die. He barely survived, but it left him a paraplegic. He was confined to a wheelchair and in constant pain for the rest of his life.
This year’s July 13 assassination attempt on former President Donald Trump and the assassination attempt on Wallace were very similar. They both were helped immensely, politically, by the bullets. Trump was leading in the polls due to the obvious cognitive decline of Joe Biden. However, Trump’s resilience and quick defiant response was iconic. It has made him a martyr among Republicans.
The assassination attempt on Wallace also saved his political life, and politics was his life. Wallace was not going to become the Democratic nominee in 1972, much less win the presidency. He was on a Don Quixote endeavor. However, being governor of Alabama was his life and the bullets that riddled his body saved his political life.
Wallace had been elected governor for his first term in 1962. He had ridden the race issue to his lifelong dream. He had won with the race issue. Big Jim Folsom was soft on the race issue and would not demagogue or race bait. Wallace was at the height of his popularity in 1966 and wanted a second term. However, the Alabama Constitution prohibited him from succeeding himself, so he ran his wife, Lurleen, in his stead. She won overwhelmingly. Wallace was actually governor. Lurleen succumbed to cancer in 1968, and Lt. Gov. Albert Brewer ascended to governor for two years.
Wallace and Brewer clashed in the most titanic and bitter governor’s race in Alabama political history in 1970. In that race, Brewer led Wallace in the first primary, largely due to a gigantic Black voter turnout. Black Alabamians had just been given the right to vote by the 1965 Voting Rights Act and they were taking advantage of that right.
Wallace came back with the most overt, racist campaign ads in American history and edged Brewer out and captured the governor’s office for a third time. Wallace had been bitten by the presidential bug and ran in 1968. He was constantly out of state and not tending to being governor. Brewer had wounded him with a slogan, “Alabama needs a full-time governor.” Wallace had pleaded with Alabamians in the 1970 runoff. He went to every city and hamlet in the state and swore that, “if you elect me governor, I will never again leave the state and will stay home and be a full-time governor.” After his razor thin, come-from-behind, race baiting, “full-time governor” promising win, the next day he was on a plane to Wisconsin running for president.
Alabamians did not like this overt demagogic lie. He was not going to win the governor’s race in 1974. Brewer and two newcomers, Attorney General Bill Baxley and Lt. Gov. Jere Beasley, were all planning to run in 1974. One of them would have beaten Wallace. However, after the bullet wounds in Maryland, sympathy for Wallace was too great. The three Bs had to wait until 1978. The assassin’s bullets severely ruined and limited Wallace’s life but saved his political life.
See you next week.
Steve Flowers’ weekly column appears in more than 60 Alabama newspapers. He served 16 years in the state legislature. steve@steveflowers.us.
