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From George Wallace to Bubba Wallace
When George Wallace, the new governor of Alabama, stood at a podium to give his inaugural address, the date was January 14, 1963. It was nine years after the US Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional. It was one year after President John F. Kennedy used federal force to integrate the University of Mississippi making James Meredith their first black student. During George Wallace’s inaugural address, he announced Alabama would not submit to federal intervention. Then he said the infamous phrase, “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”
Wallace’s speech was a battle cry.
In 1963 Medgar Evers, a NAACP field secretary, was murdered by a white supremacist in Mississippi, the KKK bombed a black church killing 4 little girls in Alabama, and President Kennedy was assassinated. Three years later, after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, James Meredith decided to lead a “march against fear” through the state of Mississippi to encourage blacks to register to vote. Two days into the march Meredith was shot and wounded by a white supremacist. But the shooting didn’t stop the march. The major civil rights organizations picked up Meredith’s mantle and continued the “march against fear” into…