[snip]
On August 17, 1968, Maddox announced that he would seek the Democratic nomination for president, but withdrew before any ballots were cast. He resigned rather than compromise on the number of black delegates from Georgia. In 1970, Maddox once again gained national attention. While in Washington testifying against the strengthening of the Voting Rights Bill, Maddox passed out souvenir ax handles in the U.S. House of Representatives restaurant. This led to a confrontation between the governor and a black representative, Charles Diggs, Jr. While the governor made his point, many wondered whether he had simply harmed his own cause.
Ol' Lester reaffirmed his actions in 2000, unlike George Wallace, who was genuinely repentant.
And as for Stoner? He is a Bircher, Klukker, Stormfront freakshow.
George Wallace started out as a liberal and was beaten by John Patterson who ran as a segregationist. Wallace saw how the wind was blowing and ran next time as a segregationist.
Patterson btw was the man credited with cleaning up Phenix City, Alabama after his Father was murdered by the hoods.
Wallace always was a liberal, just one who was willing to hide his leanings to be elected.
Which reminds me of another pair of people that need to be distinguished - Billy McKinney and Hosea Williams. McKinney is a mean racist - lots of folks were afraid of him when he was in power, but nobody ever liked him much (he may be the only Georgia legislator ever to pull out a knife and threaten to cut another representative in the well of the House!) The Rev. Hosea, on the other hand, was a good man at heart and everybody always liked him no matter how outrageous he was. His verbal fireworks are the mirror image of Maddox's - he loved to rabble rouse and raise hell, but when it came right down to it he always had a helping hand for everybody, white or black. He fed the hungry at his Thanksgiving dinner for years, he would literally give his last dollar to a panhandler. Sadly, he had a drinking problem that sometimes got the better of him, but I would always have a welcome and a kind word for the Reverend. I wouldn't cross the street to see McKinney or give him the time of day.
It's just so easy to write off everybody who was raised in the South in the early part of the 20th century as "evil racists" unless they come clean at a show trial after "re-education" and renounce their lives. It's especially easy if you don't know them, and can just condemn them out of hand as cardboard caricatures, easy targets of cheap hate. It's harder to make distinctions, but it is just.
There was much good in Maddox, despite his wrong-headed views, and people who actually met him and talked with him - white and black - realized that his views were entirely theoretical and when it came to practical reality he had a helping hand for everybody. None of the racial horrors predicted by Atlanta liberals happened during his administration - in fact he appointed the first black to statewide office, and appointed more blacks than any of the supposedly liberal governors before him had ever managed to do.