I'm not going to re-state everything I said over there. But I knew Maddox personally, spent various times chatting with him over the years. I never supported him politically, but I liked him as a person. My parents voted for Ellis Arnall, that'll tell you where they were coming from (classic urban liberals of the old school, before the Dems got so crazy). I think they held their noses and voted for Callaway in the general (he was not well thought of in GA at that time.) I wasn't old enough to vote in the '66 election, but I followed it with interest because both my parents were very active politically.
Maddox was wrong-headed on segregation, but remember he was born in 1915 and I think his major fault was that he was pig-headed stubborn. More importantly, he never allowed his abstract theory, that the races were happier apart, to interfere with his practical application of helping anybody who needed a hand, black or white. For example, when he was a foreman at Atlantic Steel, the shift supervisor tried to get him to fire two of his workers. They were black. Maddox went to bat for them because he felt they were being treated unfairly, and when the supervisor ordered him to fire them, he quit. He lost his job (in the middle of the Depression) rather than fire two men who didn't deserve it.
If you scout around that other thread, you'll find Maddox's own personal account of the Pickrick incident (and it was picks, and they were part of the decor) which sheds quite a different light on the situation. In brief, a group of agitators egged some folks on to come to the restaurant and threaten Maddox and his wife. They returned a second time after threatening them and started climbing out of their car. He told them to leave his property, and when they refused he showed a pistol he was carrying. Some of his employees grabbed some pick handles from a display by the fireplace. The carfull of people left. Nobody was hurt. A jury acquitted Maddox of brandishing a pistol or whatever the pertinent charge was.
I think you make a telling point that everybody on FR screams about the "lying liberal media" until it comes to Lester Maddox -- then all of a sudden they're all telling the gospel truth. Makes no sense to me. As I said over on that other thread, it's easier to just hate and abuse a cardboard cutout, rather than acknowledge the bundle of contradictions that was Lester Maddox.
Now Lester Maddox was no John Galt, but he did fulfill Rand's scenario.
Though blacks were not allowed on one side of his counter, they were the folks hired in the kitchen and elsewhere..
When the Feds and the NAACP yahoos came making their demands, Lester vowed he would shut it down rather than capitulate..... and he did.
And the hired help were out of work.
Oh well....you got to break a few eggs and all that.
I was very sad to hear about his death this morning. In many ways, he molded my views as to how a politician should represent the people. While Governor, he was always honest and his house was open to the public. You could drop by and chat with him at any time.
He was one of the "good guys."