Alabama Gov. George Wallace
(7 of 7)
"We've got nearly half a million pieces of mail," he told a visiting newsman. "About 95% favorable, although I don't figure you'll print that. Here's one. 'God willin' I won't vote for Martin Luther Kennedy.' 'Stand up, George, we are still behind you.' 'Thank God for your guts.' 'You have my vote in the Presidential election.' That's from Detroit. 'Dayton, Ohio. Strongly recommend you to run for President against Nigger Kennedy.' "
He picked up his dead cigar and lit it. "I think the people have decided they have been misled. They know we are fighting for principle and not against anything else. It's not too late at all to turn the tide. There's no integration anywhere in the world that's working. You can't make it. We'll have setbacks, but the N.A.A.C.P. kept fighting until it got what it wanted in the courts. We can fight just as long as they did, at least, to change it so it's right again. Just one court decision coming along doesn't mean you can't have another that will change things again. They threw out prohibition 'cause it didn't work, didn't they?
"We just don't like to be run over by this omnipotent Government trying to run our lives. We say the people have the courage and the hope, both races have, to work, and the Constitution will finally be preserved. I will continue to keep the faith in this state as I promised, because in the long run we're going to win if it takes two, three, five or 20 years, because we are right and our cause is just."
He is, of course, not right, and his cause is not just. But in Alabama's civil rights crucible, and with George Wallace's help, Vulcan, the god of fire, might continue to reign for quite a while.