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George Wallace the focus of Monday testimony in
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Published: Tuesday, April 05, 2011, 7:30 AM
By Brian Lawson, The Huntsville Times
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BIRMINGHAM, Alabama -- Former Gov. George Wallace loomed large
Monday in a federal trial over Alabama's property tax system.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs sought to show that Wallace's mix of power
and racist politics helped create a property tax system that leaves
File image
Alabama schools underfunded, particularly poor, largely black schools.
Lawyers for the State of Alabama, the defendant in the case, cited
Wallace's diminishing power in his second term as governor and his eventual reaching out to black
voters, to argue that the tax system wasn't Wallace's creation.
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Wallace led Alabama in the early 1960s and became a hugely polarizing figure. His symbolic
25
Alabama House member
proposes eliminating federal
income tax deduction to raise
revenue
23
State challenges tax expert's
testimony that Alabama
property tax approach hurts
schools
20
Superintendents describe
tough school conditions in
testimony for Huntsville
property tax trial
book about the former governor.
20
Huntsville board members each
to return nearly $15,560 in pay
Frederick testified that Wallace was in danger of losing his bid for governor in 1970 to then-Gov.
20
Whitesburg Christian
interested in buying Huntsville
public school
"standing in the schoolhouse door" at the University of Alabama and the cry "I say segregation
today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever," gave him a national audience and he ran for
president four times.
He helped get his wife elected governor in 1966, was re-elected governor in 1970 and again in
1974. He was elected again in 1982.
Dr. Jeff Frederick, an associate professor of history at the University of North Carolina at
Pembroke and an Alabama native, testified all day Monday about Wallace. Frederick has written a
Albert Brewer. Wallace's campaign began warning voters that if they didn't support Wallace over
Brewer, "the black bloc vote would run Alabama for 50 years," Frederick testified. The campaign
also distributed a doctored photo of Brewer seemingly talking to Malcolm X and Nation of Islam
leader Elijah Muhammad.
Frederick testified the picture was actually singer Johnny Cash and the two men, but the
campaign attached a photo of Brewer over Cash.
Wallace's most successful tactic was to rail against the combined forces of the federal government
and blacks in the 1960s, who were conspiring to take away the way of life in Alabama and the
South, Frederick said. Wallace regularly depicted white Southerners as a noble minority being
bullied by larger forces and he found a national audience, Frederick said.
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4/5/2011
George Wallace the focus of Monday testimony in Alabama property tax trial | al.com
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The federal government rolled back each of his efforts to evade integration of schools, Frederick
said. So Wallace made it clear to white Alabamians that integration was inevitable and the state's
public schools were of diminishing value. He supported the growth of private white-only schools in
the late 1960s and 1970s Frederick said. Amid that backdrop Wallace's support of legislation that
capped property taxes in 1972, supported by the Alabama Farm Bureau, wasn't simply about
taxes, but about reduced support for public schools.
Drayton Nabers, an attorney representing the State of Alabama, pressed Frederick on Wallace's
struggles with the Alabama Legislature in 1971 and the difficulty rural interests had in getting a
tax measure that lowered rates for farms, timberland and homes to 15 percent of assessed value.
Nabers noted Wallace had run in 1970 promising no tax hikes.
Nabers questioned whether the debates over both the 1972 and 1978 property tax amendments
were really a struggle between urban and rural legislators over state dollars rather than race.
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The defense's cross-examination of Frederick resumes at 9 a.m.
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http://blog.al.com/breaking/2011/04/george_wallace_the_focus_of_mo.html
4/5/2011