By the mid-20th century, racial tensions had escalated and demonstrations
swelled for voting rights and school integration. Beginning with the Montgomery
bus boycott in 1955 lead by Reverend Martin Luther King, conflicts between
the Civil Rights movement and those who would fight to maintain "the
white way of life" would lead to violence and, in some cases, murder.
Between 1948 and 1965, over two hundred Black churches and homes in the
Deep South were the target of bombings, and there was no more volatile city
than Birmingham, Alabama (dubbed "Bombingham.")
In 1962, before his election as Governor, George Wallace aligned himself
with other Southern Governors who were facing the same issues of federal
intervention in order to impose desegregation in their states' schools.
Wallace appeared at a rally for Georgia's Marvin Griffin, who was running
against a candidate with more moderate views on desegregation. Wallace also
supported Mississippi's Governor Ross Barnett in the dramatic confrontation
between state and federal authority over the admission of the University
of Mississippi's first black student, James Meredith. The stage was set
for his own dramatic stand at the University of Alabama. |
