Wallace, George Corley (1919–1998)

US politician; governor of Alabama 1963–67, 1971–79, and 1983–87. Wallace opposed the integration of black and white students in the 1960s. He contested the presidency in 1968 as an independent (the American Independent Party) and in 1972 campaigned for the Democratic nomination but was shot at a rally and became partly paralysed.

Wallace was born in Clio, Alabama, and educated at the University of Alabama. He served in the Alabama state legislature 1951–55, and was a judge on the third judicial circuit 1955–63. He was elected for his first term as governor in 1962, and during, the 1963 integration of the University of Alabama, he defied a court order and prevented blacks students from enrolling at University; he later complied with the order. His wife Lurleen Burns Wallace (1926–68) served as governor 1967–68 when he was ineligible to run for a second consecutive term, but died in office. Wallace regained the governorship in 1970 and again in 1974 (after the election laws had been amended). Wallace moderated his staunch anti-integration views and was elected for a fourth term as governor by a populist coalition of blacks and whites in 1982. He retired in 1987.