I live in Montgomery Alabama. The city has a rich history – painful and prideful. I think this piece by George Wallace’s daughter embodies the authentic change this country is experiencing.
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Editor’s note: Peggy Wallace Kennedy is the daughter of George C. Wallace and Lurleen Wallace, who both were governors of Alabama. She lives in Montgomery, Alabama, with her husband, Mark Kennedy, a retired state Supreme Court justice. They have two sons, Leigh, a decorated veteran of the Iraq war, and Burns, a college sophomore.
Peggy Wallace Kennedy says her father sought absolution for his segregationist views.
MONTGOMERY, Alabama (CNN) — I heard a car door slam behind me and turned to see an elderly but spry woman heading my way.
The night before, a gang of vandals had swept through the cemetery desecrating graves, crushing headstones and stealing funereal objects.
My parents’ graves, situated on a wind-swept hill overlooking the cemetery, had not been spared. A large marble urn that stood between two granite columns had been pried loose and spirited away, leaving faded silk flowers strewn on the ground.
I was holding a bouquet of them in my arms when the woman walked up and gave me a crushing hug. “Honey,” she said, “you don’t know me, but when I saw you standing up here on this hill, I knew that you must be one of the girls and I couldn’t help myself but to drive up here and let you know how much me and my whole family loved both of your parents. They were real special people.”
I thanked her for her kind words as we stood side by side gazing down at the graves of Govs. George Wallace and Lurleen Wallace.
After a few moments, the woman leaned into me and spoke almost in a conspiratorial whisper. “I never thought I would live to see the day when a black would be running for president. I know your daddy must be rolling over in his grave.”
Not having the heart or the energy to respond, I gave her bony arm a slight squeeze, turned and walked away. As I put the remnants of the graveyard spray in the trunk of my car, I assumed that she had not bothered to notice the Barack Obama sticker on my bumper.
When I was a young voter and had little interest in politics, my father would mark my ballot for me. As I thought about the woman in the cemetery, I mused that if he were alive and I had made the same request for this election, there would be a substantial chance, though not a certainty, that he would put an “X” by Obama’s name.
Perhaps it would be the last chapter in his search for inner peace that became so important to him after becoming a victim of hatred and violence himself when he was shot and gravely injured in a Laurel, Maryland, shopping center parking lot. Perhaps it would be a way of reconciling in his own mind that what he once stood for did not prevent freedom of opportunity and self-advancement from coming full circle; his final absolution.
George Wallace and other Southern governors of his ilk stood defiantly in the 1950s and ’60s in support of racial segregation, a culture of repression, violence and denial of basic human rights.
Their actions and the stark images of their consequences that spread across the world galvanized the nation and gave rise to a cry for an end to the American apartheid. The firestorms that were lit in Birmingham, Oxford, Memphis, Tuscaloosa, Montgomery, Little Rock and Selma were a call to arms to which the people responded.
And now a new call to arms has sounded as Americans face another assault on freedom. For if the stand in the schoolhouse door was a defining moment for George Wallace, then surely the aftermath of Katrina and the invasion of Iraq will be the same for George W. Bush.
The trampling of individual freedoms and his blatant contempt for the rights of the average American may not have been as obvious as an ax-handle-wielding governor, but Bush’s insidiousness and piety have made him much more dangerous.
Healing must come, hope will be our lodestar, humility will reshape the American conscience, and honesty in both word and deed will refresh and invigorate America, and having Barack Obama to lead will give us back our power to heal.
My father lived long enough to come to an understanding of the injustices borne by his deeds and the legacy of suffering that they left behind. History will teach future generations that he was a man who used his political power to promote a philosophy of exclusion.
As his daughter, who witnessed his suffering in the twilight of his years and who witnessed his deeds and heard his words, I am one who believes that the man who, on March 7, 1965, listened to the reports of brutality as they streamed into the Governor’s Mansion from Selma, Alabama, was not the same man who, in March of 1995, was welcomed with open arms as he was rolled through a sea of African-American men, women and children who gathered with him to welcome another generation of marchers, retracing in honor and remembrance the historic steps from Selma to Montgomery.
Four years ago, the young Illinois senator who spoke at the Democratic National Convention mesmerized me. I hoped even then that he would one day be my president.
Today, Barack Obama is hope for a better tomorrow for all Americans. He stands on the shoulders of all those people who have incessantly prayed for a day when “justice will run down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream” (Amos 5:24).
Perhaps one day, my two sons and I will have the opportunity to meet Barack Obama in person to express our gratitude to him for bringing our family full circle.
And today, the day after the election, I am going to ride to the cemetery so that if asked, I can vouch for the fact that the world is still spinning but my father lies at peace.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Peggy Wallace Kennedy.
Theme Music for this post: Sam Cooke – Change Gone’ Come
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I believe that I went to college at Mississippi University for Women with Peggy Wallace. It was in the late 60’s.
If I am not mistaken, Peggy drove a white Mustang convertible.
Very nice to hear that Peggy is writing and sharing her memories of her Mom and Dad.
Thanks for the articles.
Hazel
This is a powerful piece. They say the sins of the father will always stain the future of his offspring, however, God says their is forgiveness for us all, if we seek it. What profound insight on such a profound day! America is attempting to come full circle and I am so proud to be a part of this moment in history.
Sincerely written from the heart. There’s a tough road ahead, but knowing that change is in sight makes the path a bit easier to bare. Wow! Folks, you better know who’s in control of this entire thing. Alabama maybe a red state, but it’s political stance does not nearly represent the hearts and minds of all Alabamians. This lady’s piece really demonstrates a different time for this country and for the south.
E, you couldn’t have chosen a better song. How could you not LOVE Mr. Sam Cooke and Marvin Gaye.
Get ready for the biggest disappointment in your lives.
WALLACE GRAVE DESECRATED TWICE
The grave of legendary-segregationist George Wallace was desecrated
by Obama-celebrants, the night of the presidential-election, and,
again, the following day, by the Governor’s own daughter. The
nighttime attackers stole a large marble urn from the Montgomery
resting-place of the icon who had declared, “Segregation today,
segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” They, also, destroyed
funereal-decorations and scattered silk-flowers. But, the following
day, Peggy Kennedy, Wallace’s daughter, attacked her own father,
as she came to clean up. Kennedy told reporters that she expressed
“gratitude” to Barack Obama for bringing her “full-circle,” away from
Wallace’s segregationist-stance. She insisted that she wanted her
children to meet Obama, so that he could “reshape” them, presumably
away from preferring “freedom-of-choice” and marrying their own kind.
Kennedy enunciated no condemnation for the desecrators, who were
still at large, but said that Obama stood “head and shoulders” above
both her own father and mother, who were buried next to one another,
at her feet. Lurleen Wallace had been elected Governor, when Wallace
had been unable to succeed himself. She never repented for preserving
segregation. Wallace was on the verge of being elected President,
when he was gunned down by an avowed-integrationist, who, to this
day, gloats that he was justified in shooting a segregationist.
Kennedy related how an elderly woman approached and tenderly said,
“Honey, you don’t know me, but when I saw you standing up here on
this hill, I knew that you must be one of the girls and I couldn’t help
myself but to drive up here and let you know how much me and my
whole family loved both of your parents. They were real special people.”
The woman whispered, “I never thought I would live to see the day
when a black would be running for president. I know your daddy must
be rolling over in his grave.” Kennedy concluded that she scornfully
turned her back on the adoring senior and walked away, confiding that
she didn’t have the heart to admit that she had an Obama-sticker on
her car. Kennedy began to quote Scripture to reporters, but never
mentioned the Commandment to “honor thy father and mother, that thy
days may be long on the land the Lord, thy God, hath given to thee.”
Perhaps she omitted that reference, because she knew that Americans
were losing their own land, because they, too, had failed to honor
their own fathers. Kennedy, ironically surnamed for the man who sent
federal-troops into the South to force “brotherhood-by-bayonet,” said
that she had been “mesmerized” by Obama, who she considered “her”
President.
Kennedy said nothing about the recent vote by her neighbors,
retaining segregation-mandates in the Alabama Constitution, or the
evacuation of the Democratic Party, whose symbol was once a
white-rooster, inscribed “For White-Supremacy and the Right,”
after Richard Nixon pledged to carry on the principles of her
Democrat-father. She paid no homage to the stand-in-the-schoolhouse
door, which garnered Wallace overwhelming support in the Democratic
presidential-primaries, from Boston to Wisconsin. Wallace, even,
feted me, as I was campaigning for Governor of Mississippi, as we
reminisced about being a young worker in his early campaigns. Wallace
had a standing-order to admit me into his capitol-office, day or night,
whether he was in or not, which I took up, on occasion, to leave him
notes or well-wishes. Had Wallace reached the White House, the
place would not be becoming the Black House.
Days earlier, when John Lewis accused John McCain of being like
George Wallace and McCain fired back that Wallace was “the worst
chapter in American history,” I had taken to the airwaves to rebuke
McCain, saying, “Senator, I knew George Wallace. George Wallace
was a friend of mine. And, Senator, you are no George Wallace.”
Kennedy echoed no such veneration. Although the textbook I wrote
on constitutional-government bears the imprint of Wallace and me,
shaking hands, I did not attend the funeral, because Wallace had
undertaken to “change,” toward the end, when he was in terrible pain
from his wounds and suffering intensely. I held highly the “old”
Wallace or, rather, the “young” Wallace, a former-boxer, who had
said, “If any hippies lay down in front of my car, it will be their
last. I will run over them.” And, he did. So, to the old, unknown
woman, who cared. “Thank you, dear. The fight goes on.”
http://www.nationalist.org/news/flashes/2008/110601.html
Copyright 2008 The Nationalist Movement
I was so happy to read Ms. Kennedy’s beautiful essay in the Mobile Press Register last Sunday; I grew up in the segregated South, but I accepted with a full and contrite heart the vision of the Civil Rights Act. I was appalled and ashamed of Govenor’s Wallace’s famous stand. I had never believed that Mr. Wallace was truly sorry for his views and his actions during the 60s –even as late as the 1995 TV coverage of Wallace’s life when he was greeted by the men and women at the Selma Memorial March. But Peggy Wallace Kennedy’s words and her elegant recounting of her father’s contrition has touched me, making me once again aware of the beauty of reconciliation.
powerful.
Thank you so much.
I am saving this to show my son, when he is old enough to understand.
What a disgusting witch. How disgraceful. Benedict Arnold looks good, compared to this traitorous sellout of a whore.