George wallace
...s slowly failing, his father and shortly died leaving the Wallace family in financial need. Wallace soon realized that the only way he could make it through college, and support the family is if he got a job. However, Wallace ended up getting about three jobs. He decided to take up professional boxing, waited on tables, and worked in many different kitchens. Even though he was working a great deal, in some way Wallace still found time to take part in school activities. Not only was he president of his freshmen class, but he was also captain of the baseball and football teams. Finally Wallace received his law degree in 1942 (Bernier). Wallace’s political career began when he was chosen to aboard the state legislature in 1947. While there he continued to work even harder and proved to everyone that he had all the qualifications of becoming governor (Jones, 6). Wallace was not “a violent person when it came to racial problems. While serving as legislator, he sponsored bills to improve Alabama’s business, and GI & Dependents Scholarship Act, which helped children and widows of veterans to pay for college” (Bernier). In 1958, Wallace finally took a shot at becoming governor for the first time. Unfortunately he loses to his opponent John Patterson who was racist. Wallace claimed that he was “out-niggered,” and he was certain that next time he was going to win (Bernier). Ever since his loss against John Patterson, Wallace decided to change his whole outlook on racial issues. He became fascinated with the idea of becoming a segregationist and thought that was the solution to winning the next election. When the next election came around in 1962, Wallace once again ran for governor. Luckily, he won with the support from Ku Klux Klan members. He allowed them to do all kinds of violent behavior in Alabama during the Civil Rights movement (Bernier). Wallace disagreed with making life easier for blacks because he was against civil rights. In 1963 he tried to act as a barrier by standing in the entranceway of the University of Alabama, to keep two black students from registering. Later on that same year, he sent police officers to Huntsville, Mobile, Tuskegee, and Birmingham to keep schools from desegregating, but President Kennedy took control and made sure all Alabama schools were desegregated. Besides his disagreement with racial issues, Wallace did not like the way the government was ran. He disliked the powers, the courts, and government officials. He felt that government officials and federal judges were only interested in their own lives; were never focused on the task(s) at hand, and did not care for the American people (Pearson). In 1966, Wallace was not allowed to run for governor a second time according to the law. Instead his wife was chosen for the job. Alternatively, Wallace had his own plans. He decided to become an Independent and ran for President in 1968. Even though he earned almost 11 million votes, the majority of the votes he received came from disrespecting blacks. Sadly, his wife died two years later after fighting cancer. Wallace received enough votes to take his wife’s place as governor in 1970 (Pearson). He finally upset someone after his talk about a lot of garbage, and in 1972 “he was shot 5 times by a man named Arthur Bremer which left him paralyzed from the waist down and ruined his presidential dream”(Bernier). Because of this terrible incident, Wallace was left with much pain, sickness...