EB, that's PRECISELY the point I'm trying to make.
That's exactly what i'm saying about Wallace.
One point that you raise, I believe I alluded to in general about the number of black appointees to state government. Despight Wallace's "avowed segregationist" ploys of the 60s, the state of Alabama saw the largest shift in blacks into state government on his watch and he appointed more black judges and justices in Alabama than any other governor in history.
You also make an excellent point on how Georgia managed their race relations in the 60s. This is a point I trumpet all the time. The only difference between Alabama and Georgia in the 60s(namely Birmingham and Atlanta) is that Georgia/Atlanta had infinitely more intelligent leadership that had a vision and a tenacious will to win the ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT battle in the south. While the rest of the south (namely Birmingham/Alabama) was trying to fight an ideological civil war and finally win, Atlanta was rolling out the red carpet for Delta Airlines, totally redesigning Hartsfield International Airport into the monolift that you know of today, hammering out the details of a new heavy rail MARTA system that separates Atlanta today from the rest of the also-ran metros in the South (save for Dallas-Ft Worth, Houston and possibly Miami). Atlanta was busy devising ways to give blacks the political power while the whites maintained the big business/economic power but to the benefit of the region and state instead of Birmingham or some other southern metro/state.
The fruits of their labor then are clearly evident today; Atlanta about 4M metro population and counting,,,,,, state of Alabama 4.1M finally,,, Birmingham 920K as the snail crawls. But now in Alabama all the Wallaces, the "Bull" Connors and the Pattersons are long dead,,, but the state is still paying the piper for their antics. Sucks for Alabama.
Yes, I would acknowledge that, in no way, is Wallace absolved of the positions he took and the rhetoric he ran which hardline true avoided racists took to heart and acted on in their own interpretation.
Now to the education take. This is the greatest modern day problem in Alabama (,,, other than a worthless arse constitution crafted in 1901 by the large land owners/former plantation owners in rural Alabama but specifically the Black Belt region). This is the racist white Alabamian's last card. They said, yeah, you may have won the desegregation/civil rights question, but I'll be damned if I have to send my kids to school with yours; we'll start our own private schools. ,,,, and they did. and this is why there is no ground swell of support for funding of public education in Alabama. increasingly, people (mainly white) don't want to hear about funding public education because their kids are going to Macon ACADOMY, Wilcox ACADOMY, Montgomery ACADOMY,,, etc.
I bet we won't see no University of Alabama ACADOMY or Auburn University ACADOMY and wholesale abandonment of the state PWCs for private colleges. It's ok to make sure we fund those football programs-UUUUH-I-MEAN their academic programs,,, but when it comes to elementary and high schools across the state,,, "no new taxes! cut the fat! need more accountability! teacher testing!!!"????? Everything but a better funding formula like you have in, say, a North Carolina. But then again, we are a state of relative abject poverty and we can't raise taxes like northern states or California,,, but I just heard a week or so ago that Mississippi now funds their schools better than our top public system here in Alabama which is an afluent suburban system outside of either Birmingham or Huntsville.
It don't too much matter who you have in office in Alabama; education will always suck and be underfunded because doing anything about it other than running the usual rhetoric is political suicide.
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