Standing in the Schoolhouse Door



During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's, several showdowns occurred between state and federal authorities over the issue of segregation in the south. One of the most famous of these happened fifty years ago today on the campus of the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. It was on June 11th, 1963 that Alabama Governor, George Wallace, who was an ardent segregationist, stood in the doorway of Foster Auditorium to prevent African-American students Vivian Malone and James Hood from enrolling at the University. Wallace's act of defiance that day left President Kennedy no choice but to take action. After hearing of Governor Wallace's actions, Kennedy moved to federalize the Alabama National Guard in order to get Wallace to move. After being confronted by Deputy Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach and the National Guard, Wallace stepped aside and Malone and Hood became the first two African-American students to attend the University of Alabama. In the years following the schoolhouse door incident, George Wallace would make four unsuccessful runs for the presidency, running three times as a Democrat, and once as an Independent. It was during his 1972 campaign that Wallace's life would change forever. While visiting with potential voters at the Laurel Shopping Center in Laurel, Maryland, George Wallace was shot five times at close range. The wounds he sustained would leave him paralyzed from the waist down and confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. It was his near assassination that helped to change Wallace's outlook on a number of issues including his views on segregation. In 1979, when asked about his stand in the schoolhouse door back in 1963, Wallace said, " I was wrong. Those days are over, and they ought to be over." It's safe to say that by the end of his life, George Wallace was a changed man. An amazing transformation indeed for a man who once claimed, "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." Governor George Corley Wallace died on September 13th, 1998 at Jackson Hospital in Montgomery, Alabama. He was 79 years old.