May 15: George Wallace is Shot (1972)
Prayer Idea
Pray for people who are seeking to make amends for their past mistakes and bad choices.
History Note
George Wallace was born in Clio, Alabama, in 1919. After attending law school at the University of Alabama and serving in the military during World War II, he became an assistant state’s attorney, a state legislator, and a judge.
Wallace lost the 1958 campaign for governor of Alabama to a candidate endorsed by the Ku Klux Klan. This prompted Wallace to take a hardline stance in favor of maintaining segregation and opposing civil rights for African Americans. He won the 1962 election for governor.
In 1963 Governor Wallace stood in front of the door of a campus building to prevent students Vivian Moore and James Hood from registering to attend the University of Alabama. President Kennedy sent the National Guard to force Wallace to back down.
Since Alabama governors could only serve one term at the time, his wife ran for governor and won in 1966. She died of cancer in 1968. Wallace ran for president that year as the candidate of the American Independent Party. He won electoral votes in Alabama and four other Southern states.
After a change in Alabama’s constitution, Wallace was eligible to run for governor again in 1970, and he was again elected to that office. He decided to run for president again in 1972 and sought the nomination of the Democratic Party.
While Wallace was campaigning in Maryland on May 15, a man in the crowd shot him several times. Wallace survived, but he was permanently paralyzed from the waist down.
During his recovery in the hospital, Shirley Chisolm came to visit him. Shirley Chisolm was the first black woman elected to Congress, and she was also seeking the Democratic presidential nomination. Chisolm recalled that Wallace cried when she expressed sympathy for his condition and told him that “I wouldn’t want what happened to you to happen to anyone.”
Wallace was re-elected governor of Alabama in 1974 and served another term. After leaving office in 1979, Wallace visited Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, where Martin Luther King Jr. had once served as minister. Sitting in his wheelchair, Wallace said to the congregation, “I have learned what suffering means. In a way that was impossible [before the shooting], 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.”
In 1982 Wallace ran for governor one more time. He won, receiving 90% of votes cast by African Americans in the state.
George Wallace died in 1998.
President Jimmy Carter greets George Wallace at a White House event for state governors in 1977. Photo courtesy Consolidated News Photos / Shutterstock.com.
Learn More
This video features news coverage after Wallace was shot in 1972.
Find other resources at Homeschool History.
