strange days had found us

Reading about LBJ, George Wallace got onto my mental radar screen.

My first memory of Wallace was in the 1968 election:  since LBJ had decided not to run, there was no incumbent -- three candidates and no incumbent...
Richard Nixon for the Republicans,
Hubert Humphrey (from Minnesota) for the Democrats,
and George Wallace for the -- I don't know.

The only information I had heard about him was, he didn't like black people.
(That's his platform?...)

Next time he visited my "radar screen" I was in the car being driven to piano lesson, and news came from radio that George Wallace, running for president again, in the Democratic primary, had been shot -- in -- Maryland, I think....(yes, Google says Maryland...).  1972.  (Not again!)

That was horrible. 
The assassinations.
JFK
MLK
RFK
and Wallace was in a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

I think all that violence caused many people to feel disillusioned.

Reading on the internet -- George Wallace's son has written a book about his father and it sounded like part of the thesis was that Gov. Wallace was not really such a racist, but he used the "race-baiting" line and the staunch segregationist position because it "worked" to get him elected.

He became sort of a symbol of the old days and the old ways, by standing in a schoolhouse door to prevent some black students from going to class.  John S. Pancake pointed out, in a review of a TV-movie about Wallace, that standing there in the doorway only kept that school segregated for an extra four hours.

He was expressing, or standing for, the way some people felt.

Then, in the Free Encyclopedia, I come across this:
"Bremer's diary...published after his arrest shows the assassination attempt was motivated by a desire for fame, not by politics...."

That's an interesting parallel, if you think of it this way:

Gov. Wallace used the race-baiting tactic,
not because
he really wanted to hold back black progress,
but in order to
get elected,

While

Bremer's assassination attempt on
1972 presidential candidate Wallace
was not done becasue
he disliked Wallace,
or disagreed with his political positions,
but in order to
get famous.

As The Doors said,
"Strange Days."

-------------  The F.E. also tells us that Shirley Chisholm, a black woman in the U.S. House of Representatives, (at that time the only black woman in the U.S. House...) visited Gov. Wallace in the hospital, after the shooting.

And -- [excerpt, Free Encyclopedia]--------------------- In the late 1970s, Wallace announced that he was a born-again Christian and apologized to black civil rights leaders for his past actions as a segregationist.  He said that while he had once sought power and glory, he realized he needed to seek love and forgiveness.  In 1979, Wallace said of his stand in the schoolhouse door:  "I was wrong.  Those days are over, and they ought to be over." -------------------------- [end excerpt]

Looking at the above paragraph now, I wonder about a conversation I had, (or rather, was clobbered by), in the late 1990s -- there had been a cable TV-movie about Wallace starring Gary Sinise...I saw parts of it, and was impressed.  I mentioned this, in state capital, over lunch with two school superintendents, a man and a woman, and they both, like, almost went wild -- "You like George Wallace?!"  "You're a supporter of George Wallace?!"

(What they used to call a "knee-jerk reaction.")

I tried to say,
"I said the film was well-done;
I did not say that I was awaiting
an opportunity to
vote for
George Wallace,"

but it was no use.  They jumped to a conclusion, and clung tightly to it, like frogs jumping from one lily-pad onto another one. 
I couldn't move them off that lily-pad. 
Reason was rebuffed.

("I was wrong.  Those days are over, and they ought to be over."  Did those school superintendents not hear that Wallace had said that?  AND -- apologized?)

Thought, "Hmmh.  These people
can't listen
can't process information
and
they're in charge of education.
Very good."

Politics drives people crazy.

Politics drives some people crazy.

-30-