WALLACE'S DRAMATIC TURN-AROUND
On May 15, 1972 while campaigning for president, Wallace was shot five
times by Arthur Bremer, a self-proclaimed assassin who had also stalked
Richard Nixon and George McGovern. With severe damage to his spinal cord,
Wallace was rendered partially paralyzed, unable to walk and in constant
pain. His political martyrdom seemed to create a "halo-effect"
around the once "untouchable" leader. During his hospital interment,
he was visited by Ted Kennedy, Ethel Kennedy (the widow of Robert Kennedy,)
African-American Congresswoman Shirley Chisholm, Richard Nixon, Hubert Humphrey,
and George McGovern. Elvis Presley, a long-time admirer of Wallace, called
and offered to avenge his friend's tragedy.
Despite his handicap and the enduring pain he suffered from his injuries,
George Wallace made a remarkable come-back. In 1974, he made a concerted
effort to amend the harm he had sponsored against African-Americans. Over
the following ten years, he would serve two more terms as Alabama's Governor
(1974 and 1982,) and would campaign for the Democratic Presidential nomination
in 1976. Admitting defeat in the primaries, he threw his support to fellow-Southerner,
Jimmy Carter, telling an ABC newsman, "I had to do things -- say things
to get elected in Alabama, that made it impossible for me to ever be President."
By the end of his political career, George Wallace was once again, and perhaps
most truly, "a man of the people," reflecting their short-comings,
their suffering and their capacity for perseverance. |
