WI No "Segregation Now, Segregation Forever"

[wilcoxchar]

I was listening to this NPR article on George Wallace and found an interesting POD.

"Segregation now, segregation forever" quickly became Wallace's symbol, Greenhaw recalled. "Before Wallace made that speech, the editorial page editor of the Montgomery Advertiser tried to get Wallace to take out that part" of the speech. "And Wallace said, 'Without that, it won't stand up.'

What if Wallace had taken the editor's advice and not included the line. I can see a double-edged sword to this as a POD. Wallace's appeal outside of the South might have been improved by not having the iconic line, but it's also debatable whether his political career would even have gotten as far as it did without it since those words gave him immediate national notoriety.

One interesting thing that came to mind is that if the stand in the schoolhouse door still happens, Wallace's defining protest against integration would be physical rather than verbal. I'm curious how much of an effect that would have on cultural perceptions of opposition to the civil rights movement.

 

[sloreck]

Wallace was right - what popularity he had was from being totally hard line about segregation. At that time to say that segregation would ever end was the equivalent for those who were supporting it to accepting black men dating your daughter. Wallace rose politically as a hard line racist, to back off would tank his career. Furthermore he really believed it.

 

[Emperor Julian]

He becomes another no-name governor from half a decade ago.

 

[RogueBeaver]

If Wallace still stands in the schoolhouse door and otherwise acts per OTL, he could still be something of a national figure. Isn't like there are better candidates for his role.

 

[ZhugeLiang]

Wallace was right - what popularity he had was from being totally hard line about segregation. At that time to say that segregation would ever end was the equivalent for those who were supporting it to accepting black men dating your daughter. Wallace rose politically as a hard line racist, to back off would tank his career. Furthermore he really believed it.

He didn't believe it in beginning. But he lost an election to some doofus and then he tried out this 'segregation' thing to win votes.

And he did. Sad...

 

[Axeman]

Wallace was right - what popularity he had was from being totally hard line about segregation. At that time to say that segregation would ever end was the equivalent for those who were supporting it to accepting black men dating your daughter. Wallace rose politically as a hard line racist, to back off would tank his career. Furthermore he really believed it.

I'm not certain he really believed it.

When Wallace was first entering politics he was a standard rural populist who was actually tarred as a "radical". The KKK actually endorsed his opponents several times and when he lost an election (can't remember which one, fairly close to when he first became governor though) he said "I'll never be outniggered again". He went from racial moderate / apathetic to hardline segregationist because it won votes.

Later in his career he seemed to genuinely atone and actually won most of the black vote when he was running for office later in life. Whether or not this makes Wallace a better or worse person (He wasn't racist! He was a demagogue!) is another issue entirely.