Confronting George Wallace's Culture of Fear by Jim Patterson

By Jim Patterson Guest columnist, Pueblo Chieftain Pueblo CO

As I waited in my Atlanta hotel to film my scenes in the Oprah Winfrey-Brad Pitt production of “Selma” -- about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic civil rights campaign to lead a 50-mile march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., in support of voting rights -- I called family, friends, and ministers for moral and religious support. Thanks to that support, I managed to maintain emotional control during filming.

As a child of 7 when Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace was elected in 1962, I was frightened by his fiery verbal attacks against the state’s African American community. I was not alone in being scared of Wallace. I knew white adults who feared him. Wallace’s “supporters” would strong arm working poor families to contribute to the governor’s political ambitions to make America a segregated nation.

If Wallace’s rhetoric was scary to adults, black and white, if was twice -- no, three times -- as scary for kids. Even more so for gay kids like me. My family lived on the Georgia border, and I believe the Peach State was less racially violent than Alabama. Due to our proximity to Atlanta, my family travelled there frequently for family needs and medical specialists.

Since our relatives and friends lived in Georgia, we had no reason to travel into Alabama’s interior. It was described as “Wallace Country,” which to me meant it was a lawless and frightening place.

My parents were not eager to visit hot spots like Birmingham and Montgomery. And I was concerned for my safety and that of my parents if the people of “Wallace Country” were to make accusations about my long “Beatle style” hair.

My aunt and uncle, visiting us from Boston, saw how scared I was from my conversations with them. They urged my parents to send me up to Boston during Alabama’s racially violent summers.

Those times were to me like an episode of “The Twilight Zone.” Adults did not behave as adults, and violence increased virtually every day. My parents eventually agreed to send me to Boston to stay with my aunt and uncle, who were childless, for short periods during the summer.

Traveling from small-town Alabama to Boston was like escaping to paradise. I enjoyed the culture and excitement of the city, but what I liked most about Boston was it was not “Wallace Country.” It was such a relief.

These were the thoughts going through my mind as I waited in Atlanta to film my scenes in “Selma.” In one of my scenes, I played a reporter at a Wallace news conference. I thought I was prepared for the part, but I wasn’t.

As I stood before Tim Roth, who played a convincing Wallace with two large Confederate battle flags as his backdrop, I became breathless and dizzy. Although the events that led to the third and successful Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights March in 1965 took place in late winter when the temperature was in high 40s, the filming was in summertime Atlanta with temperatures in the high 80s to low 90s.

I thought I might be dehydrated and asked for water. Thankfully, the film crew was generous with bottled water. The dizziness I experienced was not due to the Georgia heat. It was from the lingering childhood fear of George C. Wallace and the control he had over most white Alabamians. It was fear of Wallace-inspired violence at Birmingham, Montgomery, Selma, and hundreds of other towns, large and small, that created the real life “Twilight Zone” of lawlessness of my youth.

It was a place where violence was celebrated and awarded by elected officials. Wallace called this violence “standing up for Alabama.” The Alabama of the 1960s, completely influenced by Wallace, was a lawless and frightening place where racists would kill even children in church to make a political point against civil rights and the “Communist” Dr. King.

My role as a reporter in Selma was much-needed therapy for me. It was my chance to shake my head in opposition to Tim Roth as he recited an anti-Civil Rights, pro-segregation, anti-Dr. King speech Wallace delivered 50 years ago. I was shaking my head to the ghost of George C. Wallace and the ghosts of long dead Klansmen who lived lives of hate and violence. I was shaking my head to a sad chapter in Alabama and American history and the wrong I saw done to friends, family and loved ones.

At the time of the Selma-to-Montgomery march in 1965, some Alabamians said the public, after a few years, would never remember. The reverse is true. African Americans, the LGBT community, other minorities, and history will never forget the triumph of faith over bigotry and fear in Selma.

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Jim Patterson is a writer, speaker, and lifelong advocate for all people. He was instrumental in promoting the passage and enforcement of the Americans with Disabilities Act, completed foreign assignments in Canada, the UK, Mexico, Brazil, Chile, Peru and Venezuela, and was the first person to be appointed to the first-ever Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual EEO Program manager in the USDA, among other policy and governmental accomplishments. He is based in Washington, D.C.