Chainsaw History - Part One: George Wallace Was Worse Than A Racist

Episode Date: August 4, 2021

Jamie & Bambi discuss four-term famously-racist Alabama governor George Wallace. His early life reads like a supervillain origin story. Learn more and support our podcast over on Patreon!

Chainsaw on the street. Yesterday we had some technical difficulty, hopefully today we won't have some weather difficulty. Like we seem to have forgotten how to do this, so now we're trying something completely different. Well, okay, that implies that we ever really knew what we were doing during the event. No, we've never done this before. And that's a complete false narrative.

We've never done this the same way twice, and so why start now? Yeah, we're just going to keep figuring it out. So like now we're outside sweating, the sun is shightly brining, the sun is brightly shining, and there's yet raindrops falling on the roof over our heads and our delicate electronic equipment. So that's because there is blue skies all around us, except for there is a literal dark cloud right the fuck over. Way too more of a metaphor than I was looking for.

So yeah, we're sitting, we've got an outdoor setup, I've got a paper script covered in handwritten notes. This is completely not the way we've ever done this before, and we've got a giant sheet of plexiglass in between us. Fun. But you know what? I'm on my porch. There we go.

Yeah, we're here. So I'm in my bathing suit, and guess what? It's white girl summer. Yep, the white claw is out. The claw is out. We may or may not be slightly medicated. I'm always slightly medicated, but I have to. Alright, so we haven't done this in like forever now.

It has been a huge long time since our last recording session. This is Theoretically Chainsaw History, the podcast where we swear and make fun of historical figures. Cause they're terrible. I'm Jamie Chambers, this is my sister Bambi. Hello. And we are a Theoretically, once again, a comedy history podcast. I'm not a historian, but I did take some history in college, and I am a nerd who says the F

word a lot. I'm a mom. But I'm funny. Enough, supposedly. Also in theory. Speaking of hilarious parents. I'll just leave that. I'm just gonna leave.

I'm gonna get myself in trouble if I keep talking anymore, so let's just jump straight into it. Our entire family is basically from Alabama, specifically from the Fort Payne area, the former sock capital of the world. So it shouldn't have come as a surprise that a member of our family has a loose connection to the topic of today's episode. I'm surprised all of our family doesn't have a loose tie to the topic of this. This is the one that I found on accident.

In fact, this was the thing I found out about that gave me the whole idea to do this podcast. The May 6, 1972 edition of the Daily Mail in Hagerstown, Maryland, gave a bunch of front page real estate to an article titled, Wallace Campaign Does Booming Business, referring to a presidential election campaign. In the article, a close relative of ours, who we will not name, is identified as working at the Wallace headquarters almost every night for a month. This same relative is quoted as saying, Wallace has been my man for 10 years. We're going to get him in this year.

Now I don't know how much you know about George Wallace, longtime governor of Alabama and one time presidential hopeful, but going into this research, I only knew a few lines from one speech. Yeah, it's that guy. And honestly, that's really all I knew about him before this. Somebody we're closely related to was all about him back in 1972. And supposedly had been with him all since 1962. So think about that timeline in your head as we go through his story.

Oh, I love Alabama. I'm so glad that I don't actually live there. Nope. We moved to the racist state next door. Yeah. So in other words, I just knew. Everything's fine. It's fine.

And the good news is he's dead. George Wallace is the dead racist former governor of Alabama. But the fact that someone in our entire family supported him so strongly, but hasn't spoken about him like our entire lives made me curious and I fell down the research rabbit hole. And I expected to find a simple racist and instead I found a way more complicated man that's probably even worse if you think about it. He's a piece of shit. Let's talk about him.

Yeah. Um, it's like diving into a pool of shit. Just hold your nose. You're going to find little moments of joy in the middle of this despite the bad stuff I promise. Like he gets shot. Spoilers. All right.

First let's acknowledge our main sources. The first is the biography, The Fighting Little Judge by Jeffrey K. Smith. And our second is a really excellent documentary that anybody wants to check it out. They can find it on YouTube. It's called George Wallace, Set in the Woods on Fire, presented by the American Experience, which was on PBS. That came out, I think, like 20, 21 years ago. It's a really nicely done documentary.

It has a lot of direct interviews with people who knew and worked with Wallace. So let's get started. So George Corley Wallace was born in Barber County, Alabama, down in the southeast of the state, less than a two hours drive from Albany, Georgia, only a year after the end of World War I. So we're talking 1919. Okay. So right around the time we got the vote.

Yeah. Women, that is. Women. The little wooden house of his childhood didn't have electricity or running water. The nearby town of Clio didn't have paved streets. He was the oldest child of four, which is important to note because his siblings later become key players in the Wallace, Alabama political machine. George's father was an angry little man who was constantly drinking Coca-Cola's and

chain smoking, which sounds a little bit like my ex-wife. Is this when Coca-Cola still had cocaine in it? We're in 1919. I gotta assume so. I don't know. It's before prohibition. But this isn't that very early 20th century thing. So at least maybe right there.

A little bit. I don't remember that detail from the last time I went to the Coca-Cola Museum. Yeah. George's father apparently got so pissed off one time he stabbed a friend during an argument, which you know, at least my- Which totally indicates they put the cocaine back in. My ex, who's also a, for a long time, chain smoking, constantly Coca-Cola drinking person with a temper from Alabama, but did not stab anybody, as far as I know. She liked to throw things.

Now, both Wallace's parents had a temper that they passed on to their oldest son, and they didn't spare the rod, if you know what I mean. George Sr. was known to take a leather razor strap to his children's backsides while the Mrs. preferred the switch. And I don't think you're from an Alabama family. If you haven't had to cut the switch, you'll be beaten with at least a couple of times, you know, in your childhood. Yeah, no.

We never got a switch. I got a switch. You got switched? I very distinctly remember being threatened with switches, but never actually gotten beaten with one. But I did get to hear all of the stories from our cousins, so. Getting switched sucks. I mean, it's a very common Southern old-fashioned-

That is an Alabama thing. You know you're in trouble when you have to pick your own switch. And then, yeah, depending, and then you think if you're by picking a little thin one, that's going to be okay, and then instead you're just giving yourself those little, those tiny little paper cut size, yeah, it sucks. We call that abuse now. One of the Wallace brothers, Gerald, put his mother's parenting style in plain words. She whipped the living shit out of us.

I've heard that quote before. Yeah. As a young child, George would accompany his grandfather, who was a doctor, on house calls out in the country. This opened him up to not just his own poor upbringing, but gave him a wide view of the kind of suffering poverty inflicts. And for all his many, many faults that we will talk about at length, George Wallace would always consider the needs of the poorest citizens in Alabama when it came to policy.

Now, Dr. Grandpa Wallace pushed George to become a pastor, something that he was completely uninterested in, but he very much used the style of like a revival preacher in his future political ambitions, which started when he was eight years old and was elected president of his third grade class. So really, he didn't really give a shit about people, not enough to like actually, you know, help them. Yeah, a pastor is somebody who at least in theory is out to help his community and his congregation, where it is.

A politician doesn't even claim to give any fucks. And he locked it in like at eight years old, he ran for president of his third grade class and won. Gross. 00:09:09,400 --> 00:09:10,400 He was that kid. You and you're going to hear even more, George got a taste of large scale political machines at age 13, helping his father campaign for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who you might have

heard of. I love FDR. Yes, little air horns for FDR. The Wallace family went all in on the on the FDR and the New Deal and the populist messaging definitely made a strong impression on the teenage boy. Now baby, I hate to break like normal standard rules that we all agreed to in the 1990s, but to maintain my integrity as an amateur podcast comedy historian, we have to talk about Fight Club.

But the first rule. I know, but we got the history has to be told the history of Fight Club has to be so. So yes. So as a young teenager, this is still when he's like 13, 14 years old, George and his brothers built a crude boxing ring in their backyard, just using materials they found lying around. So like just planks and rope, fuck me now see George young George Wallace is played by a young Edward Norton in my head, which I have no problem seeing Edward Norton as

a white supremacist because I've seen that movie before that we've that's a great movie by mail. It's rough. It's harsh. Yeah. So they charge one cent admission for other kids to watch the Wallace boys beat the living shit out of each other, sometimes drawing dozens standing around or sitting on tree stumps. At ages 17 and 18, while also serving as quarterback of his high school football team, George Wallace

twice won the Alabama Golden Gloves Bantam weight boxing championship. So a Bantam weight is for a boxers between 115 and 118 pounds. So and he was five seven. So he's like a little, a little ish guy, but he was willing to throw down. He was always in great shape in his younger life. He was very athletic and had an attitude. In fact, I think that whole persona as a fighter really informed the rest of his life. Like lots of people avoid confrontation, especially physical kinds and Wallace was the kind of

guy who like is all about arguments and totally ready to throw down. He leaned into his image of like the scrappy little guy ready to go to war over just about everything. That tracks from what little I know that tracks. So this guy was a dick from the beginning, who really he didn't he didn't want to join the church because he wanted to punch people in the face. Well, he always went to church because that's what you did when you lived in Pudong County, Alabama and then early 1900s, but he just didn't want to be a pastor.

That was not the life he saw for himself. Now once he was 15 years old, George took an opportunity and scored a spot as a page for the Alabama State Senate. Only four such positions were available. So he campaigned by writing letters to each of the senators and tried to meet as many of them as he could wearing the only suit that he owned. So you know, 15 years old, fresh face, little George worked his little hard out to get this little spot and it got him a boarding home and a salary of two entire dollars per day.

As a page, yeah, two dollars, two whole dollars. Now as a page, George was exposed to the full political machinery of Alabama state government. So he's meeting and working for some of the most important men in the legislature. He ran errands and learned typing and shorthand and drove the lawmakers around. And it's really easy to imagine his whole future ambitions were born as a scrawny, pimply teenager in Montgomery. So now we get to 1937 when George began college in the fall, forced to hitchhike to get to Tuscaloosa to attend the University of Alabama.

Being the broke kid he was, he had to hustle waiting tables in order to afford the tuition of a hundred and twenty dollars per semester. So he's like working his way through school. He's working his way. How much did you say? A hundred and twenty? Twenty bucks to go to the biggest university in the state. In Alabama.

Yeah. Okie dokie. Now on one hand that's not a lot, but this is also 1937. It's 1937, honey. The Great Depression is kind of in full swing at this point and he's from a poor family in a poor town. And yet he could still do that. Yeah, he got in.

And yeah, he's still managed to get in and work his way through college and support himself. His grades and the power of being white help. Yeah. Yeah. College makes me sad now. So, but safe to say though, he at least wasn't one of these rich kids who coasted through. He had to bust his ass to make his way through college, to be fair. He majored in pre-law back then with just a two-year undergrad degree.

George was a mediocre student and never accomplished anything in campus politics because his poor status and background kept him out of the fraternities that rule the on-campus political machine at the University of Alabama to this very day. Oh, you mean he didn't like the elitism that was involved with the campus system? Wow. I know. It bothered him. It really bothered him.

I'm sure he's going to do something to like right some of these, you know, cultural wrongs. When he was asked about his frat, George identified as a GDI, a goddamn independent. I feel bad, actually. I'm a goddamn independent. A few noteworthy things from his time at college. George served as captain of the university boxing team and showed continual excellence in the ring. In fact, there's actually a pretty cool picture you can find of one of his college boxing

days of him just like really like laying one into his opponent and blood flying out of the other guy's mouth. It's like a cool boxing sports photo. I mean, Wallace knew how to throw and take a punch. He worked as a ticket taker for football games and got acquainted with folks who would go, like these, and these are like the important people in the, in the area. So like he met up and coming important people while he's sitting there selling tickets. Because even in 1919, football was a big ass deal in college sports.

Oh yeah. So he met, so he just kept ingratiating himself with people who would matter later. And it was during this time that George became friends with a student named Frank Johnson. He's a hardworking young law student with serious ambitions and he'll come become important later on, but just sort of put a pin in Frank Johnson for a second. I'm sure it's going to be lovely at the moment. So far, all this entire story is like a brillo pad against my soul, which yeah, but here's the thing.

It's like right now, there, right now there's nothing that says this guy couldn't go on to be a perfectly fine human being, but I know better. He's working. He's a, he's a poor working class guy who's busting his ass working his way through his college. He's beating the shit out of people in the ring. I mean, I'm on board. And instead of using that power for some kind of good, he decided to use it for evil.

So he met this guy, Frank Johnson, who he's buddies with back in college. He'll pop back up later. This is also the time in which George's father, George senior, died of typhus and typhus sucks. Typhus sucks. That guy sucks. Yeah, the angry little chain smoking dude who beat them with a razor strap. And again, you know, maybe if you don't beat your kids, they might not grow up to be fucking complete assholes.

Yeah. Maybe. So if, if you think he had it coming, you know, typhus is rash, fever, nausea, vomiting, cough, severe joint pain, delirium. No one's sad. He's dead. Move alone. He's dead.

Fuck that guy. Fuck that guy. Worried about his family, George offered to drop out of school and work to help make ends meet, but his mother insisted he complete his education. And I cannot stress to you how difficult it was for George to work his way through school because he had no family to lean back on. He had nothing. So if his mom would have just been like, yes, come home, support us, he would have just

died in obscurity. Maybe. In Alabama. But when you hear about everybody else and everything else is going on, would he have been better or worse? So this is, this is the questions to ask yourself as you keep listening because it's not like he's the only racist in Alabama in the late 1930s. Oh, I mean, there would have been a dozen other George Wallace's.

It didn't. And you're going to meet. I'm going to. I'm sure. I'm sure I know some. But for now. I'm sure I know some intimately. But for now, like I said, I'm trying, divorcing my brain from the future, young, still like

19, 20 year old George Wallace. I'm kind of on board with him. Like I said, he's scrappy. He's got an attitude. So far, so good. And he's working his way through school. He used breaks from school as opportunities to earn tuition money for the next year, including a trip through Kentucky, Virginia and the Carolinus.

He was selling magazine subscriptions and he got very good at it. And here's why. So let me give you a rundown of the George Wallace sales experience. So he's like sleeping in his car on the side of the road at night and then he would walk up to an old farmhouse and begin a tirade of bullshit quote, folks, federal government has passed a new law that says you've got to have reading material and we're here to see what you'd like to pick out. And if the would be customer pointed out the family Bible, George would kind of with,

well, that ain't any good. This new law says you've got to have periodicals. So he was a lion grifter to start with. Oh yeah. And if the family didn't have any money to spend, George didn't give up. Well, let's let's see now. Maybe we can work something else out. I reckon you got some chickens or something.

Oh, so George usually left home with cash. Or something he could sell. I mean, while some like ill, half illiterate housewife is forced to have a magazine that you didn't need and couldn't afford because George Wallace is an absolute piece of dog. And he's like either trying to sell a chicken or just cooking it. I'm having a hard time even being funny, which because I'm so appalled by this story on one hand. It's bad, but at the same time as a former broke college student myself, it's like I

still kind of like him. He's just bullshitting people to sell his. I hate that so much as someone who actually had a job selling magazines in college. I can tell you I did not keep that job very long because I hate selling things that people don't need. Yeah. But other than like fight club and selling tickets, that's his first like big jobs he's using to help get himself through it.

And then later on, Alabama passed a law requiring rabies vaccinations for all dogs. So George spent the summer giving dog shots. No rabies is bad. Yeah. We don't like rabies. Not a bastard. As being constantly broken hustling is the running theme of George's early life. So one of his other nicknames he acquired in early political campaigns was the dog doctor

just because he gave dogs rabies vaccinations. But still, that's a good thing to do. It's a good thing to do. It's better than lying to poor farmhouse wives about laws that don't exist. I just hate him so much. I hope he got rabies. I hope a dog bit him and he got rabies. But I know he didn't.

At last, George graduated with his law degree in 1942. However, he was forced to drive a dump truck all summer in order to pay his overdue student fees so he could actually get his hands on his diploma. So he's still working his way through school after graduation. And it was during this summer that George fell madly in love. 22 years old, he fell in love with a pretty 16-year-old dime store clerk named Lerlene Burns. Lerlene.

That is an Alabama name. Lerlene. Lerlene. Alabama. And she's about as Alabama as you get. I find Lerlene to be a fascinating character in George's story. And I wish it had more time to like learn and had more to talk about even though this is already pretty meaty script.

But um... You want to talk about Lerlene? She's with Lerlene. There's more than meets the eye. She was a bit of a shy tomboy, but there were early hints that Lerlene was an extraordinary person. And spoiler alert, Lerlene is the future governor of Alabama. Sort of.

We'll get there in the second episode. One day. One day. We'll get to you, Lerlene. We'll get to Lerlene's big moment, but that'll be next episode for that part. I have a feeling I'm just going to start getting more Alabama as this continues. It's going to happen. Because I only have two really modes.

I have my Bambi voice, which is fine, and this is what it usually sounds like. But if I want to go real Southern, I can go real Southern. My people are from Alabama. I'm trying to have a few slight variations of my... You're trying so hard. It's like, I'm not going to be Alabama. Well, I've got some Alabama people to quote, so I got an outlet. You got an outlet for your...

I'll be doing some of my Alabama as we go. I do love the name Lerlene. Lerlene. That just... Ler... That just sounds like she has the fancy lady mullet. But at this point, Lerlene is a 16-year-old girl who'd already graduated high school and was working her way through a local business school.

So she's learning to type and learning shorthand and just how to be a good secretary. At 16 years old, George charmed her father and received the man's blessing, and then George and Lerlene started a serious courtship. Yes, her daddy's permission. And once again, to be fair, in the... That is how things were done, because again, women at this point were literal property. Yeah. And, you know, this is in the early 1940s, and a 22-year-old dating a 16-year-old wasn't

quite as obscene as it seems now. I still think it's great. A 9th... How old was 16? She's 16. He's 22. It's gross, but it could be worse. Yeah.

It could be... I mean, especially for... I mean, for the time, it's actually pretty... That's pretty normal. I mean... That's about the same age difference as our grandparents on the chamber's side. Yeah. I mean, that's actually, for the time period, it's actually a respectable age difference

and not completely gross. And he did ask her family's permission before he starts dating their daughter, when she is still a literal child. And they're like, you just go take Lerlene. You just take her away. It's fine. Did I mention it was 1942? Some stuff was going on.

Stuff was going on in 1942. Yeah. Like wars and shit? George found himself as an aviation cadet in the Army Air Corps, which is the precursor to the modern air force, which didn't exist back then. Shortly after arriving to his first duty station, he contracted spinal meningitis and nearly died. The infection gave him minor paralysis and permanent nerve damage.

Not the last time you'd hear those two words from a doctor. Yeah. So, well, with the exception of the getting married to a child bride, I mean, I'm glad something bad happened to him. Yay for spinal meningitis. Now, he's not married yet. But this is when he started. He's just marrying.

He's dating this kid. Dating a child. Although in 1940s, you know, that means they're like holding hands and going to the soda shop. It's hard to say, because Wallace was not the most, you know, it's not like he's a sexually pure dude, as we'll find out later on. So because of the damage from the meningitis, his hopes of serving as a pilot were forever dashed against the rocks. So he couldn't go die in World War II?

Oh, no, he could still go die in World War II. He just can't fly the plane. So with George's political ambition so thoroughly established, even his choices to serve in the army were motivated by his future determination to become the governor. So he decided to become an enlisted flight engineer, even though he qualified to attend officer candidate school. He later claimed, I sense that if I got back to Alabama and into politics, there would be far more GIs among the electorate than officers.

So he was literally thinking, you know, everybody hates officers, there'll be way more enlisted dudes and they'll vote for one of their own rather than an officer. So he chose his job and his role in the army based on thinking about his political ideas for future. Like since he was a teenager, he was like, he told people back when he was a page at 15 years old in the state Senate, one day he was going to return him to Montgomery as governor. Turn and I'm going to be governor, so gross.

After surviving the God awful meningitis, George took advantage of a 30 day medical furlough to get back to Alabama and see Lerlene. He'd already almost died on base and he was about to go fly on combat missions over Japan. So on May 22nd, 1943, the young couple headed to the justice of the peace with a handwritten waiver from Lerlene's mother for the teenage girl to get married. George paid the J of the P one entire dollar for the privilege. Well, their reception was a quick lunch before a bus ride to Montgomery where Lerlene met her mother-in-law for the very first time.

The couple spent their wedding night in a barely furnished boarding house with a naked light bulb dangling from the ceiling. Everyone has to have dreams. Romance. Alabama romance. Alabama romance. Go out into the woods and thug. Let's get back to the war.

Despite his lifelong battle with anxiety, George acquitted himself well on missions. But the whole time he was overseas, he dreamed of future power in Alabama politics. With free postage offered to everyone in the armed service, George sent dozens of Christmas cards to the people in his home county with the incredibly personal note, Merry Christmas, y'all friend George Wallace. Dream-based George never shut the fuck up about his dreams and plans, declaring to everyone who would listen that he would one day be governor of Alabama. It's just so gross.

I can't even get past it. I can't get past how gross the story is. He's very focused. He is so focused. And again, the only one who's like any dreams of power. That's called a supervillain. Yeah, red flag. They're usually found in comic books.

When you're a little kid thinking, I need to be in charge of all this. I need more power. Who thinks of that? All these people should be listening to me right now. It's a super healthy thing for a kid to be thinking. And I have children older than he is at this point in the story. So I can still call him a kid, even though he's technically a grown ass man. Technically by 1940 standard.

Yes. Although if he's getting flying into war and being shot, I mean, that makes you a grown ass man real fast. Oh yeah. And he did. He flew numerous combat missions, firebombing the ever loving shit out of Tokyo. And finally, Wallace returned back to the United States just in time for the world's first nuclear weapons to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Fun. Not war crimes at all. Now, and the other thing too, honestly, and this is one of those things I really learned in my college education setting is like, one thing people don't seem to realize is that even though the dropping of the atomic bombs were absolutely war crimes, but they weren't any worse than what we were doing like in the firebombing raids on like Tokyo and some of these other cities. It's just that it used to take hundreds of planes and thousands of bombs to accomplish

what one bomb could. It was just a matter of efficiency. You know, that's another nightmare to talk about. But yeah, I'm going to open up another white claw. I'm so very, very excited. You're not sponsored by white claw, but we will take their money. Ah, please. If there is anyone who should be my sponsor of life, it should probably be white claws

because this is about as basic as I go. Yes, an off brand white claws. We're ready to take your money too. All right. So the war was over, but George clearly suffered from some form of PTSD and became a nervous wreck after the war was over because he was still instructed to continue doing training flight. It was not PTSD.

This is World War Two. You got to call it shell shock because we're men were men and bomb children. Well, George instead was so convinced that he survived the entire war and was going to be killed in some peacetime accident. He refused direct orders to go on these training flights. Okay. He later. So he wasn't scared of war, but he was scared of training.

Yes. All right. Again, shell shock for PTSD. I mean, he already had like he had anxiety his whole life. This is something that defines him. I feel that he has a major like like sort of you can see maybe even like a manic depressive kind of personality. I mean, I can't obviously diagnose him with anything, but you can see these episodes where

his anxiety takes over where he gets depressed, but also where he has this like boundless energy at other times. Is that why he starts like taking out things on black people? No, he does that for much shittier reasons. You'll see. For even shittier reasons. No, you'll see. And like I said, this is why I think he's actually worse than a normal racist.

You're like, he's interesting and also more terrible and probably worse. So George said, as in reference to refusing direct orders, call it anxiety. Come to the surface. Call it what you will. I decided I was through with flying. Okay. So since he wouldn't follow direct orders, he was sent to the base hospital and diagnosed with a severe anxiety state.

George would remain a nervous flyer for the rest of his life. And he received an honorable discharge on December 8th, 1945, including a 10% service connected disability and received $20 per month in veterans benefits. Well, it's better than the two dollars. Yeah. I mean, it's better than the two dollars and you know, however, $20 worth of veterans benefits. And that's 1945, 1945 money.

So it's not terrible. It's just getting like again, a couple hundred bucks a month. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like it'll get you by, but not bad. It's not great. It's also in a combination from the meningitis and flying those really loud ass bomber missions. His hearing continued to get worse throughout his entire life.

So he was an old death racist later. Fun, fun. Now, George wasted no time in getting the life he'd planned started. After a year long stint as an assistant attorney general, George moved his family back to Barber County so he could begin his true lifelong career politics. There he ran his first lifelong career of being evil in charge. So from the fighting little judge by Jeffrey K Smith, quote, George C essentially abandoned his wife and baby spending every available hour visiting churches, schools, farms, mills

and town squares, pumping hands and making promises. Many county residents remembered Wallace from the Christmas cards he mailed to them during the height of World War Two. When he could not borrow a car, Wallace would walk five to six miles at a clip hitchhiking as he went along, determined to shake hands and make his name known to as many Barber County voters as possible. On election day, George C won 56% of the vote and he was on his way to the Alabama legislature and the beginning of a memorable political career.

Because nothing says networking like baby Jesus. Yep. So George won his first. He's now a member of the Alabama State Legislature. Now, early on in his time in the state house, George made a powerful friend. In fact, literally the biggest man in Alabama politics, the governor, James E. Big Jim Folsom. There are so many things in Alabama that have the name Big Jim on them, by the way. I personally fell a little bit in love with Big Jim in the course of the story.

And in fact, there's a documentary, I think that's free on Amazon. I want to watch. Or maybe we'll do that for a bonus episode. I kind of, I kind of like Jim. Big Jim. You like Big Jim? Yeah. I know nothing about Big Jim, except for like lots and lots and lots of things are named

Big Jim in Alabama. Well, Big Jim. Jim's this. Big Jim's that. Big Jim. I am. He was not one of those ironically named little guys. Big Jim was six foot eight, 275 pounds of loud, surprisingly liberal populism.

Big Jim went after the big money in Alabama and fought for the interests of working class people. He had openly Jewish friends in the mid 1940s and made sure to personally shake the hands of African Americans in any crowd of supporters before the event even went on to make it clear where he stood, that they were welcome and that he was going to be fighting for them as well. So. All right.

Big Jim. 100%. And again, Big Jim could be used as a giant human shield, if necessary, so there's several people. You can truly get behind Big Jim. And more importantly than just shaking hands, he tried to convince the Alabama legislature to abolish the poll tax, which kept poor people mostly black from voting. Yeah.

Poll taxes are terrible. Yeah. And glad they don't exist. Yeah. Big Jim was all against the bull taxes. Despite his efforts, Big Jim was ahead of his time and found too much resistance to his efforts to increase the ranks of registered black voters. Obviously, Wallace did not follow Big Jim's progressive lead on racial issues, but neither

was he a violent racist. He was more of a polite, separate, but equal segregationist. And that's not great, but at the time for Alabama, that was kind of strictly the middle of the road. That was pretty hard. That's like moderate. Yeah. I mean, it was one of those things where it's like, well, you know, a racist, the average

racist in Alabama at the time would be like, well, you're not supposed to be like, I'll release dogs on you, but they won't be rabid dogs. You know, those people should be treated fair and well over there. There's not allowed to, you know, use my water fountain. That was kind of the, what they considered a moderate view in Alabama in the 1940s. It sucks, but it means that he didn't stand out. In fact, he was kind of like, like I said, the middle of the road. But these differences in opinion did not prevent George from following his mentor's populous

lead. These proposals benefited poor people. Most black residents of Alabama were included. So George introduced a bill for a 2% sales tax on liquor to fund post-secondary trade schools. This bill passed and led to the creation of five of the schools, three for the white students and two for their black counterparts. Okay.

Wallace wrote legislation that provided free college tuition to widows and orphans of Alabamians killed during the war, also providing additional benefits to soldiers and their dependents who suffered disabilities. These are all good things. Over the coming decades, the law enabled more than 30,000 people to receive a secondary education. 10,000 of those people were black. Okay.

So good things. Yay. George even sat on the board of trustees for Alabama's best known black college at the time. And it wasn't by accident. I'm sure it wasn't because everything's about politics. You are correct. James Smith's book, quote, the ambitious young lawmaker was certain that the large African

American population of Alabama would one day win the right to vote. When that happened, Wallace wanted to be a recognizable figure to the expanded constituency. Unquote. So in other words, yes. It was all about politics. All about politics. No. It was like, how can I get more power?

And while we look back on his racist remarks that sound a lot like the talking points of the modern right wing, his populist policy proposals made his colleagues think of him in the exact opposite terms. One political pundit declared at the time, quote, he was a leading liberal in the legislature. No doubt about it. He was regarded as a dangerous left winger. A lot of people, a lot of people even looked on him as an outright pinko. So literally, he's considered Wallace, they considered Wallace a liberal.

That's how shit the world was. Well, it's the thing. He was, except for the racial thing, except for he just didn't like black people. Like everything else, except for the racial elements of his stuff, like all of his actual policies are the kinds of stuff we're talking about to this day. Higher wages for working people, good union protections, and it's so it's like. It's like he just didn't like women or black people. He was fine with poor people as long as you weren't women or black.

And even then, again, you'll have to keep seeing it, at the moment he's not even against black people. He's not even against women or black people, he's just not four of them. Yes, he's not four of them. He's just at the moment. He's just coasting on everything's fine, and I'm going to focus on helping these groups of people. So, and like I said, some of his colleagues thought he was practically a communist.

Oh, so gross. So. But being a mere member of the legislature was not enough for George Wallace, so he decided to run for judge in Alabama's third judicial district. Once again, ignoring Lerlene and their now three children to go campaigning. That tracks. She was an unhappy wife, but she supported her husband anyway and with a borrowed typewriter sent out countless letters to possible supporters in any case.

So she was a good politician's wife. Yes. As they all were. In fact, maybe the most supportive politician's wife of all time, when we get all the way through part two, you'll see what I mean. Regardless of her husband's behavior, Lerlene stayed loyal until the day she died. And another spoiler alert, Lerlene dies young. Poor Lerlene.

So she was a neglected politician's wife who was constantly cheated on, raised their babies and then was expected to literally hold everything together, including the political careers because guess what? That's what they all did. And you have no idea yet what she's willing to do for this man. We'll get there. Poor Lerlene. Poor.

Poor. Absolutely poor Lerlene. Out of everyone in this story, Lerlene is the one I feel the most sorry for. I would call her a maligned woman, but that's redundant. However, I think you'll also find, and like I said, this is all, we're jumping into what's going to be in part two, but Lerlene also has kind of a shining moment. So she's a little bit of a feminist icon in her own weird way, maybe. I like it.

Or, or not. Or not. Depending on how you look at it. Depending on how you look at it. Well, you know what? It's like, well, any kind of feminist fuse in the 1940s is going to be. So it's going to be the question, I guess, can hangover before next episode will be like, you know, she does something that demonstrates female power, but she only does it in service

of a man. That's so gross. How do you feel about it? And so that's how you'll, that is something to ponder next time. Well, you know, just because I'm obsessed with Eleanor Roosevelt, you know, she was not for, um, for suffrage. FDR was. Her husband was for suffrage, but she actually for a very long time kept the views that the

woman belongs in the house and she carried no opinion on voting because women, she didn't have time to think about that because she was raising her children. It wasn't until her kids were a little bit older and she got a little bit more breathing room and she realized that her husband was a lying cheating piece of shit as they all were. So fun side story. Let's go back to Lerlene, poor Lerlene. Lerlene.

So she, Lerlene helped George and it was another successful campaign run by this up and coming political rock star. So now we got judge George Wallace. Rose. Now you might be surprised to learn about George's reputation in the courtroom as being both thorough and fair, unusually kind for the time to poor and black people. Okay. Well, that's good.

One African-American attorney praised the judge quote, your honor, I've practiced in many courts, but I have never been treated more fairly by a judge by the jurors by the officers of the court than I have here. Okay. So he was like, he did one good thing. Yeah. I guess two, if you talk, he was also a soldier in World War II, which was also a good thing. Yeah.

Because, you know. Now, anyway, we're back here, George is actually being courteous to black attorneys and defendants in his courtroom. Now, judge Wallace supported segregation as the best way forward for race relations, but he had a zero tolerance policy for racism inside his courtroom. He enforced respect from white attorneys to their black opposition and shared meals with black counsel who were not allowed in many local restaurants. So he would just eat lunch with the black attorneys since they weren't allowed places.

So again, he's showing these people a lot more respect than other people. In fact, this one interview I saw of this black attorney who served under Judge Wallace's courtroom even said this was the first attorney who forced the white opposing attorneys to call them by name. And if they didn't, if they tried to call him boy or something, Judge Wallace, like, no, you address him as Mr. so-and-so or whatever. He demanded, you know, that level. Some kind of courtesy and respect.

So there's that. So the people who were in his, he had a reputation for being fair and very, you know, like I said, moderate and genuinely kind to black people in his courtroom. Now, George continued to think about future politics, constantly keeping an eye out for news in any spirit. Yeah, don't say. He was keeping an eye out for politics. Yes.

And he used any spare time he had to ingratiate himself with potential future voters. He also saw a problem with his one-time mentor, Big Jim Folsom. Big Jim. Now, Big Jim's progressive views on race did not align with the majority of white voters in Alabama. And unfortunately, Big Jim did have a major character flaw, which was that he was a total drunk. Big Jim liked to drink.

Oh, that's so tracts with 40s Alabama. And, you know, still, you know, prohibition. And I said, Big Jim's the one of the cool guys. He's cool with people from different backgrounds and races and trying to... He's cool, which is why he probably didn't like prohibition, which is probably also why he's an alcoholic. Yep. And unfortunately, the last straw for a lot of Alabamians came when a black New York congressman

was invited to stay in the governor's mansion. It sparked so much controversy that George Wallace decided to take that moment to make a public break with Big Jim. In private, he said, well, Big Jim's always been weak on the N word issue. Eh, go Big Jim. And when the governor heard about this, Big Jim gave George the benefit of the doubt. He ain't no race bigot. Me and George is close.

George ain't nothing but a populist himself. Now, I think Big Jim was right, but also right in the fact that George would shift which whatever way the wind blew. He was totally willing to court future black voters, but also willing to capitalize on white racism to win elections. Because he was a politician, not an idealist. Yep. And he figured this was something, this is something that gets worse before it gets better.

George began prepping for his first race for governor a full two years before it was actually time to run, assembling a powerful political team that stayed with him for decades, and formally announced his run for governor in January of 1958. Since Republicans were rare and completely doomed in Alabama in the 1950s, it was all about scoring the Democratic Party nomination. So if any Republican likes to say, we were the party of Lincoln, yeah, that's also why a Republican couldn't get elected back then because the Democrats were the racist party of the time.

And why Big Jim there kind of stuck out as a Democrat who actually was for integration. Yeah, well history says that Republicans were one way until they decided that it couldn't get them votes. So they turned a different way. President Johnson to change everything around, and he comes up later in the story. Fun. But we're not there yet. We're still late.

Another dick? We're still late in the late 1950s. Another dick named Johnson. It's like if we keep talking about all these dicks, we're just gonna, I mean, we really, it's after this episode. We could do a whole episode on Johnson's dick. We should not do any more guys named George for a while. It's like, this is what we talk about in Chainsaw History.

Well, we're gonna talk to you about a historical figure named George. What's a guy's name George? We got a whole shitload of them. So getting back to it, he, all he's really worried about is scoring the Democratic Party nomination. Once you got that on lockdown, you've got, you've got the state. Now, the details of the election are interesting. We don't have enough time to really get into it.

But the main thing to know is that George's primary opponent was a guy named John Patterson. He was the Attorney General of Alabama running for governor. He was also the son of an attorney general who had been assassinated while combating organized crime in Phoenix City, Alabama. Fun. There was a literal movie made about this father and son tale. We got some Alabama gangsters. So we got, so we got an, we got an older Alabama Attorney General who went after organized

crime, got killed, and now his son's gonna, gonna. He's gonna rise up like the Phoenix and, and thin racist democracy. Patterson was seen as a law and order hero to most people and also as a strict segregationist to the delight of all the racists. Of course. Of course he was. As Attorney General, Patterson had obtained a court order banning the NAACP from organizing within the state, calling it an insurrectionist movement.

Oh yeah. Tell me if that doesn't sound familiar. Oh yeah. This, this all tracks just, just well. I mean, we're, we're still a, so yeah, cool. You take a black civil rights organization. So we're still doing this. Yeah.

You take a black civil rights organization and you accuse them of being terrorists or, or insurrectionists and meanwhile, ignoring the white people who literally invaded the capital. That's how we do things. Everything's here. It's fine. Everything's fine. Look over here.

Panic. Exactly. Now, of course, Patterson threw out plenty of racist dog whistles while attacking Wallace, saying he went too easy on black defendants in court and that his fair treatment policies went against the principles of segregated life in Alabama. And remember, George wasn't some racial progressive. He was just a moderate. He showed people like the bare minimum of respect, which didn't jive with the culture

of his home state. No, because he was supposed to be sickening rabid dogs on these people, not giving the dog shots and giving black people a different kind of shot for, for at the moment, George is not for sickening dogs on people, but don't, don't worry. We'll get there. We'll get there. That's coming up. But they're not rabid because he gave them rabies shots.

Exactly. He took care of that shit. George bitched and moaned as he got trounced in this election. Oh, his complaining shows off his sociopathic selfish outlook. So what you're telling me is George Wallace, who is historically one of the shittiest people in all of Alabama is actually, it could have been worse. This guy, I mean, Patterson. Cause this guy was worse.

It's like, if he would have just been governor and been like, Hey, we could all be a little less racist. If George had gotten elected in this election, he probably would have been like, we could be a little more moderate. We could be a little less racist. But no, Alabama was like, we are digging into this motherfucker. Exactly. So in this case, the problem isn't George.

The problem is the population of Alabama. The problem is Alabama. Or at least the ones who are allowed to vote right now. Well, I'm going to go with, um, it, it hasn't changed a whole lotty lot. So here's a quote about George bitching about having to run against Patterson at this time. I'm running against a man whose father was assassinated. How am I supposed to follow and act like that? So it's like, he literally, man, I wish my father had been gunned down by the mob instead

of dying of typhus. That asshole. He just, he just died. He didn't even, he didn't even die for cause. Drink a bunch of Coca Cola and shit himself to death. Oh well. It's also probably worth noting that Patterson enjoyed the full public support from the Ku Klux Klan while Wallace actually condemned them.

So Wallace is anti clan at this point. And Patterson. So at this point where he's, uh, all right, let's keep going Patterson didn't publicly, he didn't publicly talk about how great his KKK endorsement was, but he did say this and tell me if this line sounds at least a little bit familiar. They, the KKK, include many fine, peace-loving individuals who merely want to preserve the white Southern way of life. Many fine people on both sides.

Many fine people on both sides. God, nothing has ever, like I said, the one lesson of history. We're gonna have to take five so I can just throw up in that bucket. We don't learn shit. We don't know. Well, if history has taught us anything, it's that we do not learn from history. God damn thing. In stark contrast, Wallace gained the endorsement of the NAACP.

So that's something you probably didn't expect. That's a regret that the NAACP has probably carried with them for quite some time. That might as well have been the nail in his coffin though. George lost the election by tens of thousands of votes. They were like, fuck black people. And Patterson made the reason for his election victory quite clear. The primary reason I beat him was he was considered soft on the race question. Ewww.

Yeah, no. Patterson sucked. Patterson sucks. I wish somebody would shoot him too. George conceded gracefully in public and took personal responsibility for the loss to his campaign staff. And he took one big lesson away from the race, agreeing with Patterson. Now, I'm not gonna say it, so here's a clip.

So this includes a quote, a word that I would normally censor out, but I think it's important to hear the way this man talked and thought, and how it truly informs our understanding of just how cynical American politics truly is. So listeners can skip ahead past this short quote if they don't want to hear the n-word. George Wallace came back to the district after the defeat, back to our county, and he asked me when I come over to his office and talk with him. So I did, and he said, Seymour, you know why I lost that governor's race? I said, I'm not sure, judge, what do you think?

He said, Seymour, I was out-nigged by John Patterson, and I'll tell you here and now, I will never be out-nigged again. This is- Ewww, it tracks, but it's gross. This is the moment of his evil villain origin story where he's like- And this is when he was like, I turned into Grog. I wasn't racist enough. I wasn't racist enough for Alabama. So this just makes him decide.

This is my guiding star now, at least for a while. Has nothing to do with how he really feels. It's just about he got his ass kicked, and he decided this is the lesson. Because again, he doesn't actually have any idealism. He's just about himself in power. No, not to- so let's bring up- let's bring up the musical, yeah. Is that worse? I don't know if that's better or worse.

Let's bring up the musical Hamilton again. Remember- remember how Hamilton was forced to whether he was going to endorse Jefferson or Aaron Burr? And then finally he was like, I disagreed with Jefferson over everything, but I endorse him anyway because he stands for something, and Aaron Burr doesn't believe in anything. I think Wallace was the Aaron Burr kind of guy, where it wasn't about him being horribly racist, it was about him being so ambitious and so amoral that he didn't give a shit who he hurt.

He was willing to help black people when he thought that was the way to go, but he's just as willing to hurt them if that gets him the power he wants. Which again- It's worse to me! That's worse! That's to me, it's so much worse. Is it better or is it worse? Not that racists are great, but at least you know where they stay.

Anyway we were talking about how essentially Wallace didn't believe in anything and now he's decided to double down on racism. Because yeah, what else do you do? Because apparently black people, he figured out they weren't allowed to vote. Yeah, and he already planted the seeds, like just in case he'd already done some things. You know what? He could have just made- he could have changed laws and secured the right for the black vote and he would have won.

Yeah. It's just he didn't care. He didn't care. He wanted to take the path of least resistance. He didn't want to make change, he just wanted power. He was nakedly ambitious. And with that in mind, this will come as a huge shock to you, but after getting his ass kicked in the Alabama gubernatorial race, he immediately began planning his political

comeback. He looked around for an issue to make headlines with. And again, this isn't going to sound familiar at all. So at this time, we're talking 1958, the United States Civil Rights Commission saw some really shady shit going down in Alabama and suspected the state of massive voter disenfranchisement. You don't say. Voter disenfranchisement in 1958, Alabama, say it ain't so. There's no Jim Crow laws here.

So the feds wanted to inspect the voting records. This as a state judge now in a lame duck session, refused to hand over the records in Barber and Bullock counties, citing what else states writes. That's not how states rights work. Always the follow up question states rights to do what there's that's not a thing. So earlier, you might remember that George was buddies back in college with a law student named Frank Johnson. We put a pin in Frank.

This is now we're back to Frank. This is where Frank strolls back in into this story. This time is a newly appointed federal judge and he was not amused at all by George's bullshit. Good. Threatening, threatening to toss Wallace's ass in jail for contempt for not turning over the voting records. Yeah, because you got to do that. So George drove out to Montgomery in an attempt to charm his old friend, suggesting Johnson

give George the citation, but only some little minor penalty. That way, George could gain the political W he needed, but the feds would still get the records and everybody is happy. But it didn't go the way he wanted. Good. After the meeting, George Frank, get him after the meeting, George reported. He told me I'd be wasting my time running for governor four years from now because I'd still be in prison.

So Frank's awesome. We like Frank. Yay. We like Frank. We like Big Jim. Everyone else, not so much so far. Maybe you learn late. Wallace did what would become his defining political move.

He lost, but loudly claimed victory anyway. Oh, you don't say so here. So on a technicality, what he did was he turned over the voting records to grand juries that worked under him and had them turn it over so he could still go on TV and still state truthfully that he didn't hand it over. He fought the federal government. He fought them. So he denounced the forceful intervention of the federal government and the into the

sovereign affairs of the state of Alabama. Now Frank Johnson continued to be a thorn in Wallace's side or vice versa depending on how you look at it. And George no longer carried any warm and fuzzy feelings about his old college buddy. He's a no good, goddamn lion son of a bitchin' race mixin' bastard. Ooh, he's a race mixer. I know, right? Ew.

Wallace finished up his judicial term and moved to Montgomery to join his brother's law practice and plan his next big political campaign. Hooray. Lerlene stayed with him despite their many marital problems, mostly because George was constantly gone and almost is constantly cheating. How many kids does she have at this point? I believe we're at four. Four.

Yup, cause she's a human pez dispenser. Lerlene is nothing for she's not good for anything. And at the time her only jobs are housewife and assistant to his campaigns. Cause he's constantly. Cause he needs a secretary. That's why she took all those classes. Exactly. Continue to work as a consistent.

She was a useful, she was a useful human pez dispenser. Oh, she's incredibly loyal wife. If you look at any of these successful politicians, not good goddamn one of them could have done anything without their wives. I mean, there was the grassroots, all of that shit underneath it was done by their wives, whether they wanted to or not, whether they believed in them or not, or even whether they liked them or not. And honestly, and as you'll see as we get into part two, I don't know that there's any

stronger version of that story than this one when we get there. Like Lerlene goes his hardcore into supporting the political. You should have just stayed home having your babies. Okay. So mostly. You should have used your uterus powers for good instead of evil. Leaving Lerlene behind. He traveled all over the state giving speeches in the poorest sections of Alabama, appealing

to the working class by talking shit about the wealthy, which that part I'm totally cool with. Fuck the wealthy. So unfortunately, this is being a podcast about George Wallace. We can't really give the attention or coverage of the civil rights movement of this era deserves. So let's just say that a bunch of important events happened in Alabama during this period where George is preparing his next political campaign. Civil rights protests erupt into violence more than once with local cops in full cooperation

with violent racist mobs. There is a reason why the civil rights movement picked Alabama. Yeah. So like, for example, May 14, 1961, there was a group called the Freedom Riders. There's like an integrated bus ride from one from in this case, they were going to Aniston, Alabama. They stopped and they were immediately assaulted by a white, angry mob and the cops just stayed behind and had like a timer and waited like 10, 15 minutes before they'd rush in and actually

help the protesters. And the protesters got the shit kicked out of them. They happened, the same thing happened only days later in Birmingham. So like, the low... Violence is erupting. Violence is already starting. It's not hardcore violence yet. It's just small skirmishes, but it's just like the appetizer for what's going to be

happening later in the 60s. Well, I mean, it's a pot. It's just boiling. It doesn't... Pressure took her at this point. So Wallace looked at the state of affairs and correctly realized that long-term segregation was doomed. But he also knew that white panic was now kind of at an all-time high and it could propel

him straight into the governor's mansion. Oh, white panic. My favorite subject. So he leaned into the racism. Of course he did. As soon as 1962 began, so did George Wallace. Once at the time, Alabama did not allow a governor to serve any consecutive terms, George did not have to face Patterson a second time.

Instead, his main opponent was his one-time former mentor, Big Jim Folsom. Go Big Jim. He's going to defeat Big Jim and it's going to make me sad. Go ahead. And at first, things were not going well for George. George always suffered with anxiety and depression, like we've already said, but this time it got so bad, his campaign staff had to secretly hospitalize him. Like literally put him in a disguise and snuck him into the hospital because he was

so fucked up. And nobody was sure. They were thinking that the campaign might have to be canceled because he was just a fucking wreck and he wasn't looking like he was going to get out of bed anytime soon. But one day an aide came in and dumped a sack of campaign contributions onto the hospital bed. He should have put a pillow over his face. No, instead he put $20,000 of cash on in his lap.

So he got a cash infusion while in the hospital. $20,000 in 1962 money on his hospital bed. George perked right back up and was making televised speeches the very next day. Amazing what 20 grand did. He miraculously cured. You know, if anyone wants to volunteer it, $20,000 would also cure my depression. Anyone who wants to volunteer that. The Wallace campaign was all about state's rights and segregation, which ultimately meant

the same thing in 1962 Alabama. Wallace attacked the federal government and liberal judges such as his ex-friend Frank Johnson, who he kindly called integrated and carpet bagging, scallywagging, race mixing, bald-faced liar. He loved to go on these like tirades. Big long tirades of calling people wrong names like carpet bagger and scallywag and scallywag. Scallywag.

Scallywag. That is, that is very southern. That's very southern. It has a very specific southern meaning. Carpet bagger is very specifically southern, although it's like we, we didn't hear carpet bagger growing up cause we, you know, we're not that old. I heard some. A little bit.

I'd hear a carpet bagger. A little bit. But mostly it was just damn Yankees. Damn Yankees. George showed off his kids and loyal wife on the trail while constantly screwing campaign aids behind Lerlene's back. He got polite applause for talking about building highways in schools, but received standing ovations when speaking out against racial integration.

And with racism clearly being the winning strategy, his campaign quietly hired a speech writer named Asa Carter. Now I don't know if you've heard of Asa Carter, he's a guy who'd get his own episode. He's a fascinating guy. At the moment, he is a powerful leader with his own segment of the Alabama KKK. Oh, yay. Like for example, he wrote the speech in which we started this episode with the segregation now segregation forever thing.

He wrote, he wrote that racist ass. But interestingly enough, later on in his career, Ace Carter starts writing under the name Forrest Carter. And again, Forrest naming after Nathan Bedford Forrest, the founder of the KKK, but he wrote under Forrest Carter and wrote a couple of very successful novels. So writing under the name Forrest Carter, Ace Carter wrote the rebel outlaw, Josie Wales, later and made into a movie by Clint Eastwood, also wrote the education of Little Tree. Okay, I have at least heard of both these movies.

I've probably seen both of them, but he wrote the book version as young under Forrest Carter. He also claimed to be like heart Cherokee Indian, which was a total lie. He was a white supremacist. He was literally the leader of the KKK chapter. And he became kind of like the head speechwriter for George Wallace at this time without anybody knowing about it. So in 1962, Alabama radios played a political jingle. I don't know what it sounds like, but the words were vote right, vote white, vote for

the fighting judge. I'm going to just die over here for a minute. And remember, everything sucks. That our relative who was said to be a supporter during this time as a young person, said that they didn't know George Wallace was racist, which is the lie. Vote right, vote white. Yeah. God is angry at this political jingle.

See, again, even, even God is just like, you know what? This is a terrible story. Which is why we better try to get through these last couple of pages before it pours down green. Sadly, Big Jim could not get past his alcoholism for the campaign and was so obviously an embarrassingly drunk on the day of the Alabama primary, which, remember, was the only election that mattered at the time. He couldn't tell two of his daughters apart, like on stage in front of everybody.

He's like, which one of you again? That's not great. That's not great. I mean, from someone who has seen their father drunk more than once, he always knew who I was. I had a good daddy, though, I rest in peace. Rumors flew around that the Wallace campaign spiked Jim's punch. Ew.

We don't know if that's true, but if it is, it's so awful. That's like a known alcoholic and they just went for it. But we don't know if that happened. That's just the rumor. Well, you know what? Fucking. But it sounds like the kind of dirty trick that's going to happen. It sounds like the kind of dirty shit.

You know, it's like. When you're willing to secretly have your head speech right over the head of the KKK, then yeah, you're willing to spike somebody's drink. That's not something. I don't know that it happened, but I 100% believe they would have done it if they could have done it. Yeah. No.

You know what? I'm going to go all in for Big Jim. Fuck those guys. Yeah. Big Jim. They totally fucking sandbagged Big Jim. Big Jim deserved better. Big Jim did deserve better.

Maybe he just couldn't see his daughters because, you know, he got roofied and shit. So one way or another, Big Jim went down and it came down to a runoff election between Wallace and a more polished intellectual candidate who George just smashed and kicked his ass. And he rode racist populism as the correct formula straight in to becoming the governor elect. Of course. George Wallace spoke out against the Kennedy family, against Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,

against the federal government and liberals. He won the general election in a landslide. Now remember, the Republicans didn't even feel the candidate against him, and yet he still won the largest popular vote victory in the history of the state of Alabama, despite him not even needing it to win. I hate you, Alabama. Yeah. On a cold January morning in 1963, George Wallace achieved the goal he'd first declared

as a dirt poor kid in rural Alabama. He was sworn in as governor. I achieved power! Mwahaha. That's his evil racist laugh. This was his, like, one of his big, great moments. He was sworn in as governor of Alabama. He noted he was standing only feet from where the oath of office was given to the president

of the Confederate States of America. And he gave the speech that would define his life, once again written by that guy, Ace Carter. Today, I have stood where once Jefferson Davis stood and took an oath to my people. It is very appropriate that from this cradle of the Confederacy, this very heart of the great Anglo-Saxon Southland, that today we sound the drum for freedom as have our generation of four bears and four horses done, time and again down through history, let us rise to the call of freedom-loving blood that is in us, and send our answer to the tyranny that

clenched its chains upon the South. In the name of the greatest people that have ever trod this earth, I draw the lion in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever. Well, I don't feel good about that. Privately, however, George was quite clear that racism was not his guiding star, only ambition was. He didn't hate black people, but he was more than willing to pretend that he did in order

to achieve power. He said, quoted a number of times by different friends and associates, I started talking about schools and highways and prisons and taxes, but I couldn't make him listen. Then I began talking about the N-word, and they hollered and they stomped the floor. That's so sad and gross. So that's it for part one. We'll pick back up with George's career as governor, see what happens with Lerlene, see what happens when somebody tries to kill him, and his-

Go trying to kill him. And sadly, this is when George, when Big Jim Folsom is at the end of his thing, but I actually want to learn more about Big Jim. There's a documentary I want to check out, because he seems like my kind of guy, especially for his time. Like he was way ahead of the curve. Yeah. I mean-

What are you feeling about good ol' George Corley Wallace at this point? Uh, I don't feel good about him. I mean, so far you've not changed my opinion one iota. I am a firm believer that he was a dangerous piece of shit. No, I started with the thesis statement that he's a piece of shit. He's a- Dangerous! Not necessarily the kind of piece of shit you thought you were going to get when you

first started. No, he's worse. Yeah, because he's not an actual died-in-the-world racist. No, he's worse. You will see in the future, he's willing to 100% do a 180 on this. He doesn't believe this shit at all. He doesn't believe this shit at all, but he'll still burn a cross on your lawn. If that's what it takes for the power of George Corley Wallace.

And another thing you'll see going into this is that another thing he has kind of in common with Trump is that it seems pretty clear. Like most politicians, they look at running a campaign as this thing you have to go through that sucks in order to get the office you want, the power in order to do the things you're trying to do. Whereas Wallace figures out he actually enjoys the campaign. He wants the roar of the crowds and the applause. He likes the chase.

And he likes the chase. He doesn't actually care much about governing once he's actually there. He's bored with it quite quickly. Well, that's all just great. So. I'm so looking forward to more of this. We have no idea, dear listener, when you're going to hear this, but whenever you do, please check out my Patreon, which is patreon.com slash jamiechambers.

You can see stuff related to this content and more at my website, jamiechambers.net, where you also find about things like upcoming Twitch streams. The Patreon will have bonus content. We've already done one bonus episode and we've got more on the way. And the bonus episodes are we're going to kind of let our hair down and instead of me writing a big script, we'll mix it up and let Bambi lead the way or we'll just have a loose discussion about something without having to do a lot of research. I have a few ideas.

So if you're interested in actually listening to me talk or even possibly me read you a bedtime story, we got Bambi's bedtime stories coming up. I was thinking about doing some very short format videos where like a really short historical point ties into something going on in the world right now. Like for example, you know, I've been seeing yet again more hatred for Dr. Anthony Fauci and the rumors of the horribleness of the vaccine and I'm reminded of that back when Dr. Richard Jenner, who is the creator of the small packs vaccine, who may have saved more human lives than just about anybody.

And yet in certain like European cities, they burned him and effigy. Yeah, it's just like crazy how, you know, so it's like little things like that showing how we don't learn anything from history. But when people don't want to listen to us talk for like two hours, I'll say it in like one minute. Now, I don't know again, when you guys are going to hear this episode, we said we're going to be supporting some charitable donations for our listeners. I've got a new one.

And especially since we're talking about Alabama and labor rights and poor people. Right now, you may not know, but there is a huge strike going on for the United Mine workers of America in Alabama. They're going up against a really awful hedge fund that bought out their old mine company and they need help to make it as long as it takes just to get just to get fair wages. Like right now they're being paid below the curb in one of the more dangerous like deep mines in North America. So you can check the show notes or if you can just search online for UMWA strike fund

for information on how you can help and you can either donate directly to their strike fund or you can donate food to their food pantry, which gives groceries to keep their kids fed during the whole thing. And since that's in Alabama and kind of ties in, it seems appropriate enough for me. I've and probably for the next few episodes, I'm going to go with everyone just kind of take care of you. Give yourselves and your loved ones a check in. See if you guys are okay because we did talk about anxiety, which hits home for me a lot.

I suffer with generalized anxiety disorder and sometimes have a really hard time with that. I suffer from minor depression, but nothing big that this last year seems to have been a lot for everyone and we have a whole world that is going completely crazy. There's mass shootings all the time. There's riots and burnings and hatred and just terrible things everywhere. So check on yourselves. Work on your loved ones and make sure that everyone in your circle is okay because you

can't do anything for anyone else if you're not taking care of yourself. Yeah, I like that. Kind of like the analogy of the mass that dropped down an airplane for an emergency. You got to take care of yourself before you're ready to assist somebody else. But if you are in that situation where you think you might need some help, please reach out to someone. And if actual medical help is available to you, don't be ashamed or afraid to go look for that.

But even if you just need a trusted friend or a family member to talk to and tell what you're going through, don't feel like you have to go through anything alone. And the one problem, don't push people away. Check on your loved ones. Check in with people. If you haven't heard from someone in a while, it might be a good idea to send them a message, send them a text because everyone seems to be hurting right now and in a lot more ways than most of us can even see or comprehend.

So you know, take care of you this week. And I hope to see you next time if you want to see me on, actually you won't even see me on Instagram, but if you want to follow my pets, I'm at Pambi Chambers. And if you want to check out possibly some baking videos, you can shortly start looking for me on bakedbaking.net. Neat. You'll see a completely different side where she makes edibles. I love edibles.

I love them so much. But again, we recently got some legal weed here in the state of Georgia. So I am an excellent baker and I've actually been dabbling in edibles over this last year because again, depression, anxiety, and I have three herniated discs in my neck. So I had to learn how to make them. So I would like to teach you how to make them. Edibles that are legal in your area are an excellent form of self-care. Absolutely.

Or you can just smoke that shit, but take care of you. Until next time, disrespect racists from Alabama or any state. Boo! Fuck racism. And go Big Jim. Go Big Jim. See ya. Orlirling.

Orlirling. See you next time.