Lester Maddox, Georgia firebrand, dies at 87

Lester Maddox, a former governor of Georgia who staunchly opposed racial integration in the 1960s, died yesterday in Atlanta. He was 87.

Mr. Maddox had survived a previous battle with cancer and had suffered other health problems for years. He died in an hospice after developing pneumonia, family members said.

"Maddox more complicated than his caricature"

Tom Baxter

If race weren't wrapped up in it, the story of this week's passages would seem a lot different.

There would be the story of the son of a prestigious family who entered college at age 14 and grew up to become an urbane big-city mayor and a political player with national influence.

And there would be the story of a son of the same city's working class neighborhoods who dropped out of high school to get a job, carried the pain of an industrial injury with him throughout most of his life and went on to become a defiant champion of the "little people."

Because of the strange ways that race changes things, neither story is that simple.

Former Gov. Lester Maddox, whose death Wednesday followed that of former Atlanta Mayor Maynard Jackson by two days, despised the caricature the media made of him, although he had a hand in drawing it, riding bicycles backward at football games and jousting with Truman Capote on late night television.

In truth, he was a much more complicated man.

"As long as I am not required to compromise in my duty to my God, to the people of Georgia and to my family, I am willing to try new ways, re-examine old ways and seek a common ground," Maddox said in his 1970 State of the State speech.

That combination of staunch inflexibility and surprising experimentation marked his record as governor.

He ordered female employees to wear skirts below the knee and tossed The Atlanta Constitution's news racks off the Capitol grounds, even as he made progress in economic development and announced on a big sign on Washington Street how many new jobs the state had gained.

Maddox always insisted he was not a racist and pointed to his hiring record and his policy while governor. At the same time, he opposed lowering the state flag to half-staff after the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. died. And unlike some Southern politicians, he never repudiated his segregationist views.

For all the comic overtones, Maddox remained throughout his life as far to the right on all issues as the late U.S. Rep. Larry McDonald, bitterly opposed to the direction in which he saw the country drifting toward a "New World Order" and socialism.

Civil rights crusader Hosea Williams -- a man as uncompromising and close to the streets of Atlanta as Maddox was -- pronounced him the most honest governor the state had ever had. But Sen. Leroy Johnson, the state's first African-American senator in modern times, once compared him to a Jersey cow: "He gives a good bucket of milk and then kicks it over."

Maddox could be at times shrill and biting in his sparring matches with the media and Northern liberals. But the unabashed sentiment he expressed for his "precious Virginia," his wife of 61 years, was deep and genuine.

Those contradictions have a lot to do with the Depression era Atlanta in which he was reared. Maddox, in his early forays into Atlanta city politics, spoke for a class that saw itself in competition with blacks for industrial jobs and residential space and distrusted what Maddox often referred to as the "silk stocking" white business leaders more willing to accommodate desegregation.

It was as a gadfly voice for those working class whites that Maddox began the chain of events that put him -- to the surprise of much of the state -- in the governor's office.

He and Maynard Jackson could not have been more different. But they were both true sons of Atlanta, and part of the complicated place it is.

If I may add my own testimonial to that offered below.

On a weekend where we have lost two prominent political figures in Georgia, it amazes me that former Mayor Maynard Jackson is being heavily eulogized while Lester's funeral is getting little ink. Lester Maddox was one of a kind. Probably the only honest governor we ever had as proven by the fact that he was poorer when he left office than before he went in.

He was quite a character. I met him first in 1966 when he was running for governor. He was driving himself around Georgia in a station wagon with a sign on top stating:"THIS IS MADDOX COUNTRY". At that time, I had occasion to meet and talk to all the candidates for governor including Ellis Arnall, Ernest Vandiver, Bo Calloway and Jimmy Carter. Most of the other people my age were very liberal and thought Lester was a joke. They poked fun at him and portrayed him as if he were an unintelligent bigot. Except for Jimmy Carter, who also was then driving himself around Georgia meeting the voters, none of the other candidates seemed to care what a 17 year old had to think about politics. Lester would always listen patiently to questions,(no matter how unflattering) and explain his views in a highly articulate manner.

However controversial, his civil rights positions were the law of the land until the Supreme Court struck them down in the Heart of Atlanta Motel and Ollie's BarBQ cases in the mid-1960's based on a liberal new reading of the interstate commerce clause. Absent a tenuous nexus to interstate commerce, the right to associate is still the law of the land as evidenced in the recent Augusta National gender controversy.

I last met Lester while he was governor and I was in college at Georgia State. He used to come eat in the S&W Cafeteria and would talk to anyone who came up to him. I was put in charge of a charity fund raiser for MD that was held annually by my fraternity. While planning activities for this event at Piedmont Park, I invited several local politicians and prominent athletes to draw crowds. Other than Ken Reeves, a Falcon defensive back, only Lester showed up. He was famous for riding a bicycle backwards. At our event, we had a tricycle event for the ladies and Lester obligingly rode a child's tricycle backwards. At the time, he was Governor of Georgia.

Somehow, he remembered my name, because in January 1968. he commissioned me as Lieutenant Colonel, aide de camp Governor's Staff. I still have the framed commission hanging in my office.

Over the past several decades I lost contact with Lester. Other than the occasional newspaper article about fundraisers to help him out of poverty or his battle with prostate cancer or his wife dying, I have heard little about him. Perhaps I should have made more of an effort to find out how he was doing, but the time pressures of life precluded my doing so.

However, let me add my prayers to those others who knew and admired him:

"May he find happiness with his beloved wife Virginia in heaven."

The following is from an article on CNBS cited below.

''How you, chief?'' was one customary greeting. Another: ''It's great to be alive. A lot of folks aren't, you know.'' He was known for quaint sayings and outrageous gestures like riding a bicycle backward!

A link to the complete article is at the end of this message - following are my favorite portions. Even though I was a baby when Governor Maddox was in office, I have certainly admired his many fine qualities and stalwart advocacy of the "little people."

I have enjoyed his outgoing, even audacious friendliness in recent years when we saw him in Marietta at the Picadilly Cafesteria and Williamson Brothers BBQ. The governor played his harmonica - always including Dixie,of course and sang several songs for our children and all who cared to listen. He was a Southern treasure and took a courageous stand based on the US Constitution with which many agreed. He stated his position succinctly: "I've nothing against blacks, just forced integration."

Now separated from us by eternity, having "run the good race and fought the good fight," I'd like to think that Governor Maddox is now enjoying the company of those who went before him, particularly his beloved wife:

"DEAR MOMS & DADS. Help Save Lives, Families and U.S.A. STAY MARRIED" read Lester Maddox's 1998 ad that ran in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, following the death of his wife of more than 60 years, Virginia.

After she died, Maddox resolved to work to keep other marriages together,reasoning that if a few thousand dollars' worth of advertising could save one family, ''then it's worth it.''

Though Maddox once brandished a pistol at civil rights protesters in his restaurant, he began his term as governor with a vow that ''there will be no place in Georgia during the next four years for those who advocate extremism
or violence.''

''As well as a constitutional human right to associate with whomever you please, there should be a corresponding right to disassociate if you please,'' he once said. Maddox claimed he had nothing against blacks, just forced integration.

In one incident, customers of his Pickrick fried chicken restaurant armed themselves with pick handles to bar blacks. Pick handles became his trademark, and later he sold them as souvenirs.

He won the hearts of many by opening the doors of his office and the governor's mansion to what he called the ''little people.'' Twice a month he held a kind of people's court to hear the problems of the rank-and-file
and offer advice and help.

''I think history will record him as a very progressive governor who gave his all to see that Georgia moved forward in an equitable and fair manner,'' said former Georgia House Speaker Tom Murphy.

http://www.msnbc.com/local/rtga/FormerGeoLest.asp

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