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Wednesday, January 14, 2026

"TODAY I STOOD WHERE ONCE JEFFERSON DAVIS STOOD"

GEORGE WALLACE INAUGURATED AS GOVERNOR OF ALABAMA, PROMISES 'SEGREGATION FOREVER'

Montgomery, Alabama (JFK+50) On January 14, 1963, George Corley Wallace, Jr.* was inaugurated as the Governor of the state of Alabama having won the November 1962 election in a landslide.

According to history.com, the Governor's inaugural address was written by Asa Carter**, a leader of the Ku Klux Klan.  

Governor Wallace said...

"Today I have stood where once Jefferson Davis stood.  It is very appropriate then that from this Cradle of the Confederacy...we sound the drum for freedom.

I draw the line in the dust...and I say...segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

*George Corley Wallace, Jr. (1919-1998) was born in Clio, Alabama & attended the University of Alabama School of Law.  He served in the US Army Air Force during WWII. 

GCW was governor of Alabama 1963-1967, 1971-1979, 1983-1987.  In 1968, he ran a third party campaign for POTUS winning 5 southern states.  He was shot during the 1972 presidential primaries leaving him permanently paralyzed below the waist.

**Asa Earl Carter (1925-1979) was born in Anniston, Alabama & attended the University of Colorado.  AEC was a segregationist activist in the 1950s & became a Western fiction novelist.  He served in the US Navy during WWII.

SOURCES

"George Wallace Inaugurated as Alabama governor," July 21, 2010, History.com, www.history.com/

"Inaugural Address of Governor George Wallace," Alabama Department of Archives and History, www.digital.archives.alabama.gov/


George Wallace
Democratic National Convention
Atlantic City, NJ
August 21 1964
Photo by Warren K. Leffler