On Thursday, September 12, 1968, George Wallace and his third-party campaign for president arrived in Springfield to hold a rally on the public square in front of Heer's department store. Just a few months earlier, civil rights leader Martin Luther King and leading democratic presidential candidate, Bobby Kennedy, had been murdered. Until 2020, 1968 had been the most dangerous and turbulent year of my life.
In September 1968, the most important election of my young life was less than two months away. Voting age was 21 at the time, and I was a 17 year-old senior in high school. But I was already a political junkie living in a totally apolitical family. (Maybe it was that 4th grade report on Thomas Jefferson, have no idea.)
The 1968 election would be the first presidential election after the Voting Rights Act (1965), so there was a glimmer of hope on the horizon through the despair of living through the killings of MLK & RFK.
I was also very concerned for my own personal well-being. Older friends had already been drafted and sent to Vietnam for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to die for their country for no apparent reason, the first war in a pattern that has continued almost uninterrupted to this day. Like one of my living heroes, Mohammed Ali, had said a year earlier, I had "no quarrel with those Viet Cong."
The fact that George Wallace, avowed racist, hate monger, the man who literally blocked an entrance to black students attempting to enroll at his state university, would come to my town was both a source of dark curiosity and disgust. How would he be received here? Would there be protesters? My friend, Kevin, and I made sure there would be at least two. We found a piece of leftover white cardboard and fashioned a sign using red magic marker that simply read: "Racist!".
I'm pretty sure we skipped school that Thursday. That's a fair guess because, by senior year, I considered attendance optional. We were making our own civics lesson and arrived early to get a spot close to the flatbed trailer stage. We were relieved to see other protesters, but a few dozen protesters were eventually drowned out by a throng that police chief, Sam Robards, estimated to be between 12,000-15,000. It was the largest political crowd he had seen on the square in his 33 years on the force, according to the Springfield Daily News report.
(At this time, Springfield had both morning and evening editions. Daily News was a.m. News-Leader was evening edition. At least three reporters and a photographer covered the event.)
Police, sheriff's deputies, state patrol and secret service were visible throughout the square and on top of buildings. Reporting of the event was somewhat carefully worded by 1968 Springfield standards. Here's one account beneath a large photo:
"The jaunty candidate from Alabama rapped out his message in fiery bursts, punctuated by cheers and yells. A country band had the crowd warmed into a foot stomping hand-clapping mood . . . Pretty Wallace Girls carrying plastic buckets moved among the people collecting money for the campaign."
Wallace began his speech with a tried and true demagogue/populist message that now, 52 years later, is all too familiar. Daily News:
"Wallace was wildly cheered by the crowd for his jabs against newsmen, professors, pseudo-intellectuals and bureaucrats." He also spoke of "ultra-liberals" seeking to desegregate schools and "kowtow to anarchists who roam the streets". He continued, "If it weren't for these firemen and policemen, we wouldn't be here today - you or I - we might well have been mugged or gunned down."
The newspaper report also acknowledged protesters, who raised signs reading "Racist", "Wallace Hates", "One Hitler Was Enough".
And there was this: "Black students, calling themselves Afro-Americans, mostly from Southwest Missouri State College, felt otherwise about Wallace. About 33 Negroes showed up with signs and sentiment opposing the candidate," the Daily News reported. They marched in peaceful demonstration. A spokesman said, "We recognize Mr. Wallace's freedom of speech. We also recognize our right of assembly. We are here to . . voice our discontent and opposition at the presence of a man whose racist platform is detrimental to humanity and would jeopardize the safety and security of this community and nation."
Black protesters in attendance noted that they were not a part of the local NAACP, which had decided not to have a contingent at the rally. One young Black woman said, "As elder members of this community, they (NAACP) let us down. We are here to voice our protest and to try to get rid of some of the apathy in Springfield. Springfieldians think we are happy with the way things are. We are not."
One woman, most assuredly white because she required no descriptors, offered support for Wallace because he was "a good Christian man". Racism and white Christianity have been dating a long time it appears.
On election day, Wallace received only 12% of Greene County votes, a number matched by Missouri. Richard Nixon won the county by 20%, the state by 1%.
Nixon eventually won the election, of course, a solid electoral college win but only 500,000 more votes than Hubert Humphrey, a representational disconnect that continues to undermine voters. Wallace received over 9 million votes and won Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana and Mississippi, as the south made a huge shift away from the democratic party following the Civil Rights Act (1964), Voting Rights Act (1965) and the Fair Housing Act, which had passed the day before Wallace arrived in Springfield.
Wallace ran again in 1972, this time as a democrat, but was shot during a primary election rally in Maryland. He was paralyzed from the waist down for the rest of his life. The day after being shot, he won primary victories in Maryland and Michigan.
