George Wallace

George Wallace (1919-1998), United States political figure, governor of Alabama and presidential candidate known for his antidesegregation platform. Wallace was born in Clio, Alabama, and educated at the University of Alabama. After serving as an assistant attorney general of Alabama, a member of the state legislature, and a district court judge, Wallace was elected governor, serving from 1963 to 1967. As governor, he personally blocked the door of the University of Alabama to black students in 1963, but backed down when faced with federal troops. Ineligible to succeed himself, he had his wife, Lurleen Burns Wallace, run for governor in his place in 1966, and she was elected. Wallace sought the U.S. presidency in 1968 as candidate of the American Independent Party, running on antidesegregation issues, respect for law and order, and freedom from excessive federal control; he received 13.5 percent of the popular vote and 46 electoral votes from five southern states.

Wallace was again elected governor of Alabama in 1970. On May 15, 1972, while campaigning for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, he was shot while speaking in Laurel, Maryland, by an itinerant laborer, Arthur H. Bremer. Wallace, partially paralyzed as a result of the shooting, received 385.7 votes for the nomination at the convention in July. In 1974 he was reelected governor of Alabama, and in 1976 he led a third unsuccessful campaign for the presidency. On leaving office in 1979, he took a post at the University of Alabama. He was reelected governor of Alabama in 1982 and retired in 1987.