FM Talk 1065 Podcasts
George Wallace Jr. - The Jeff Poor Show - August 19 2024
I saw the light. I saw the light. No more darkness. No more night. Now I'm so happy. No sorrow inside. Pray the Lord. I saw the light. Look it back to the Jet Force Show. What if I'm talking about one of those six five nature sticking around on this Monday morning. Efforting George Wallace, Jr. I had this all set up and I guess we're up. Looks like we got him here. But he'll be joined us here in just a minute on the program two five one three four three zero one zero six. You want to be in touch with the show. All you got to do is text me. Still come on the program state. Education State House Education Trust, Chairman Danny Garrett will be with us. So please make sure that you stay tuned for that. Joining us now, I think we got him on the line. The son of the former governor of Alabama, but also sort of state government a number of levels. I got to know him a little bit when he ran for Lieutenant Governor, but George Wallace, Jr. joins us on the line. George. Good morning. Are you? Good morning, Jeff. You're well. Hope you're well. Hey, thanks for making time for us. We do appreciate it. I want to get you on a hundred fifth birthday coming up and I saw there's a documentary. Talk about this a little bit, and it seems to be a kind of an ongoing thing where you really are going out of your way and try to emphasize some of the good things that your father had done and how he really tried to apologize or are trying to make up for the past. It gets played up like where he is, like, the centerpiece of history for a lot of the institutional left right now when it comes to like these topics of racism. Well, yes, I think the special focus is on his entire life and his entire journey or the owner in his career and doing that era. He worked for segregation. He has been told as a child. His archaic and antiquated as it sounds to us today that segregation was in the best interest of both races. He believed that without hate ill will or malice in his heart, as most people of South did in some exceptions, but most did. But over time, his conscience took a toll on that belief, and he realized he had been wrong. And so he worked to make amends. He went to Dr. King Church one Sunday in the late 70s, one Sunday night. On an ounce and asked if he could speak to the congregation, which time he told them he had been wrong and asked for their forgiveness. And they knew he was sincere and genuine, and they, 90% of the black citizens of Alabama voted for him in 1982 during his last race for governor. So his journey, Jeff, is one we all took. He didn't take it alone. The country took it as a different era, and it's difficult, if not impossible, to judge standards of today. By that era. But he worked to get it right. And I think he did. It's a wonderful story, really, about redemption and reconciliation and coming together. And I've recently read the book about that, that chronicles all of that. And in many ways, his life was so inspiring in terms of trying to bring us together that I think given the racial divide that I see today. And I think you're listening to it as well. It could be one that we go should all eat, frankly. Well, let's talk about this a little bit. And I was thinking about this the other day. It's a reason. Like, you know, there was like a documentary on Big Jim Folsom and how he was sort of an outsider, kind of rejected by some of the establishment. And, you know, every era has their establishment political class. Where did your father fall in line and sort of, was he perceived to be? Now, I know later on, he definitely was probably one of the most like powerful political figures in Alabama, for sure. But when he was coming along, was he was he really accepted by the in crowd in Montgomery? Was he what? Yeah, accepted. Was he was he kind of part of the mix? Or was he was he always this outsider that maybe some others have tried to make him out to be? I don't think so. He worked well with the Folsom administration. At one point, he was writing speeches with Governor Folsom early on in Governor Folsom's career. My father was a populist, and some suggest that he was a liberal back in the day based upon his progressive ideas to help trade schools and other things like that. But he, as a matter of fact, most people don't know, not many know at all, that when he was in the legislature, he was appointed to the Board of Trustees at Tuskegee University. That was something that he wanted and Governor Folsom appointed him. But I don't think he was a populist. And he was well accepted among the folks in Montgomery. He was a leader in the legislature, and he and Governor Folsom had some differences later in their careers. But I think they came together later and were friends. Well, and that's something else. When you go around the state, you really see his fingerprints on a lot of things, but you mentioned the trade schools, the two-year college system really came online during his tenure as a governor, right? Well, they did. He, in the legislature, introduced legislation that began, started those two-year schools, junior colleges, and trade schools at the time they were called. And then later as governor, he made sure many more were built. And they're really a string of pearls around our neck. When you think about the needs that they fulfilled over the years, and they're very progressive idea, and needed at the time, he heard his father and grandfather talk about the need for education. When he was a young boy, and that affected him deeply. And so he cared that with him, and when he was elected to the legislature, in light of governor, he advocated those and had those built. Tell me this, and I've been hearing this all my life, George, and I don't know if this is mythology, or when I was growing up in the 80s, you would get to Birmingham, and the interstates were not finished. And some people have always suggested that. The reason why was because those places where the interstate were finished was because they didn't vote for your father. Was there any truth to that? No, I've heard that over the years, like I've heard many other myths about my father that weren't true, but I had asked him about that vote, and he said certainly not. I wouldn't have allowed any political considerations to hamper the building of interstates for our folks. So that was his sense about it. So I don't know where that came from. Normally, these things come from your political enemies, which he had many of course. Well, he never did well. It's like Mount Brook and places like that never went for your father. And I mean, I don't know. Was that like a, what, what was the problem there you think? I think that he was just such a populist that he was for the average working person, and anything that would benefit them, they needed help more than folks as you say in Mount Brook. But I think that there came the rub. He didn't come out of the click. He didn't come out of the group that was polished to be running for governor. He came out of South Alabama. I don't know where. And that just wasn't one of them. So to speak, although over time, he had many friends in Mount Brook and many supporters in Mount Brook, many of them I know today. So he began to transcend that largely. Was it, it was like a, but he was like a populist. And I don't think people really, I mean, don't really understand populism with that era, but it wasn't like he was this doctored air right winger by any stretch. I mean, he was kind of, he was pro union, right? I mean, he was, he was very much blue collar. That was his brand. He was, you say, pro union. Yeah. Yes, at one time he was. They, and believe they had a place in our country for helping folks with wages and benefits and so on. And there was certainly a time when that was needed and possibly some today, but in many respects, some of the unions got out of hand. It seemed like to me and asking too much from the businesses they were working for. Not, not finding that even balance, but he was, his ideas really instantly enough took hold in terms of his populist beliefs and working for the average working person when he ran for president. And many writers Paul Greenberg, David Broder, George Will and others have written that he was truly the grandfather of the modern conservative movement prior to Ronald Reagan. And he was very proud of that in his later years when he would talk about it. Well, there's this brand of populism that I don't know what necessarily like a European style populism or anything like that or Latin America even, but just sort of American populism that you see come up from time to time. And I guess, like more recently, Donald Trump, obviously, but before that, like the tea parties and things like that, where it's not, it's more, it seems to be more of the heartbeat of the country. And I think there's, I mean, the racist stuff is what it is, but it's much bigger than that. Well, it is. I think what you're suggesting is the values he took that he advocated in Michigan in '72, for example, when he won every county in that president's primary. In '72, anyone every county in the state of Florida, and Florida is not a southern state, neither is Michigan. That's when the real leaders of the Democratic Party realized that he had tapped into something that was affecting people and moving people. The average, the values that he brought forth from his upbringing in South Alabama of hard work and faith and goodness and love of our country and patriotism, all those things that seem so out of date to many today, and that's sad. But those are the things that he talked about when I was with him that had the crowds doing crazy like Donald Trump did, the average working person wants to be remembered and thought about in terms of policy, and that's what he did, and that's why he was winning in '72 until he was taken out of the race. And he said at the Democratic Convention in '72, he said, when George McGovern was nominated, he said, "If you nominate this candidate in this platform, it will lose by the greatest majority in the history of the Democratic Party," which isn't exactly what happened. But I think a lot of what he advocated back then brings true today is like goodness it does. What do you think we'll ever see something like that? I mean, I guess we're seeing it with Trump a little bit, but let's let's kind of remind it a little state of Alabama and electing its politicians. You don't have these real populist moments in the state like you used to. We were a fulsome, rural, Wallace emerge, right? It seems a very, and it's always been like a one-party state just now, it's Republican, instead a Democrat. But like, do you ever feel like when you watch what's going on in the state that we're kind of due for this moment again at some point? Well, it was a different era and you had different ways of appealing to people. Technology is really robust with much of the beauty and the Americano of the political rallies where the country music stars and all that that I grew up with. But it's all very generic, it seems to me. I don't see a lot of spark among the politicians like I used to. Maybe that's because I don't got no, but I just don't see it. We have good people serving, of course, you know, for the right things. But the personalities back then seem to be a little more interesting to me. It does seem very cookie cutter and everything is all maybe different now that you don't do the retail politics as much as you once have where you're like actually there in person, talking to people, giving speeches, feeding off the crowd, everything seems kind of made for TV. Well, it was made for TV. It's just, it's what it was. Back in the day, '58, '62 and Mother's Raisin '66, you had five or six rallies a day. The country music stars would start it and then they had a mother would speak and then they'd move to the next town and get ready to set up again to do the same thing. And you had some TV and some radio, a lot of York signs, a lot of signs along the interstate and two lane roads would still have some of that. But it was a richer, and to me it was. It was a richer mix of politics and people. You saw people. After you spoke, you went through the town. You can, but everyone. And that's how I was raised and difficult to do that today with so much TV. These campaigns these days is just how much money you can raise to get on television. That's the powerful thing or social media. So for everything, one, I guess is something lost. Oh, oh, we're wrapping up on this, our mutual friend David Asbell texting me this, that I didn't know this, that you used to open for Hank Williams Jr. So this one I'd have been kind of when he was maybe not as well known or before he maybe was the household name that he is today. Well, this was 1973. I went on a couple of his tours, his opening, and we became great friends and this was before he fell down the mountain. And at this point, he was having big crowds. He was playing mostly his dad's songs, but he used to lament to me that he really wanted to play his own music. And after he fell down the mountain, nearly Ajax Mountain on town, nearly died, he decided life's not a trial run. I'm going to play some of my own music and the rest is history. And I'm very proud of him. We used to sit in the back of the bus and play our guitars. And I think he felt he had a lot in common with me since we were sons of famous men. And I appreciate his friendship. Proud of him. I mean, it really is there's a distinction there between his father's music and his music, clear distinction between the two of them. But yeah, I said there was a clear distinction between the two of them, his father and him and the music and maybe just a matter of the errors they came up in. But they're not really similar at all, are they? Well, a bit different. I think my father actually saw Hank Lee's play back in the late 40s, went to one of his concerts, I believe long time ago. But I think his mother, Audrey and I were great friends. She was great friends with my father as well. And I'm very proud of Hank. He's done a great job with his writing and his music. Georgia, well, we'll wrap it up there. We got to get to a break. But thanks for hopping on and talking about your father was his hundred fifth birthday is upon us. Well, Jeff, you're welcome. If anyone's interested in my book, I've written an interesting book revealing in many respects about my dad's journey. They go to our website, Governor George Wallace.com. I think they'll find the pages on their website. Very interesting. Or go to Amazon.com and just put George Wallace in. I think they'll find it. I think you'll listen to the book. Yeah, I'll get that book. It's readily available. George, like I said, thanks for making time for us and we'll talk again soon. Thank you, Jeff. Enjoy it. All right. Let's get a break in here. We'll be right back. This is the Jup4 Show. Whatever talk, 106.5. (upbeat music)