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Friday, September 13, 2013

George Wallace: Template For Bible Belt Conservatives


"We shall continue to maintain segregation in Alabama completely and absolutely without violence or ill-will. ... I advocate hatred of no man, because hate will only compound the problems facing the South. ... We ask for patience and tolerance and make an earnest request that we be allowed to handle state and local affairs without outside interference." George Wallace, first gubernatorial campaign (14 February 1958), quoted in George Wallace: American Populist (1995) by Stephen Lesher


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Alan: Bible Belt conservatives appear to abjure ill will when typically the contrary is true. Perhaps the public espousal of "one thing" - and the private practice of "another" - is what makes these Pharisees contrary, obfuscatory and oppositional. By "religious" conviction they are devious, deceptive people, contemptuous of justice for all, preferring instead the centrality of selfishness under guise of godliness. Long before penance was complete, The South forgave itself. Completion of penance could be accomplished by commitment to The Common Good and renunciation of rugged individualism with its built-in bias of aggressive self-interest.

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"I was out-niggered by John Patterson. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be out-niggered again."  To Seymore Trammell (1958), quoted in George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire

"I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor." Attributed in George Wallace: Settin' the Woods on Fire

Years after being paralyzed by an assailant's bullet, Wallace said: "I have learned what suffering means. In a way that was impossible, I think I can understand something of the pain black people have come to endure. I know I contributed to that pain, and I can only ask your forgiveness." Address to the Montgomery Dexter Avenue Baptist Church (1979), quoted in Washington Post (17 March 1995) "George Wallace – From the Heart"






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