Women of Influence: Lurleen Wallace
Lurleen Burns Wallace was the 46th governor of Alabama for fifteen months from January 1967 until her death in May 1968. She was the first wife of Alabama governor George Wallace, and she succeeded her segregationist husband as governor of the state because the Alabama constitution forbade him for holding office for consecutive terms. She was also Alabama's first female governor and was the only female governor to hold the position until 2017. It may be a reach to describe her a "woman of influence" as she openly admitted to being her husband's surrogate, while he was de facto running the state. Nevertheless she has an interesting politically historical life story.
She was born Lurleen Brigham Burns on September 19, 1926. Her parents were Henry Burns and the former Estelle Burroughs. Lurleen was highly intelligent and graduated in 1942 from Tuscaloosa County High School at the age of fifteen. She then worked at Kresge's Five and Dime in Tuscaloosa, and it was there that she met George Wallace, at the time a member of the United States Army Air Corps. The couple married on May 22, 1943, when she was 16. Lurleen Wallace deferred embarking on a career of her own to care for her family. For the next two decades she focused on being a mother and a homemaker. The Wallaces had four children: two daughters Bobbi Jo (born in 1944), Peggy Sue (born 1950), then a son, George III (born 1951), and then their youngest daughter Janie Lee (born 1961).
It wasn't a happy marriage. By most accounts George Wallace was not a nice person. Besides being a rabid segregationist, he was also a terrible family man who neglected his family and who engaged in frequent extramarital affairs. Lurleen filed for divorce in the late 1950s, but withdrew her divorce petition after Wallace promised to be a better husband. By some accounts, he kept that promise and the couple had a better marriage for the rest of her life.
George Wallace was elected as Governor of Alabama in 1963. It would be the first of four terms he would serve nonconsecutively terms, but the only one that she would live to see. Wallace supported the policies of "Jim Crow" at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was taking place. He famously declared in his 1963 inaugural address that he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." But she did have her own goals as First Lady. She opened the first floor of the governor's mansion to the public seven days a week, and she refused to serve alcoholic beverages at official functions, much to the chagrin of her husband and his cronies.
In 1965, George Wallace was unsuccessful in his attempt to get the constitutional ban on his candidacy for re-election lifted. There is no doubt that it was his plan to have Lurleen would run for governor of the state but that George Wallace would be "the power behind the throne" and that he would be the one exercising the authority of the office behind the scenes. This strategy had been tried before in Texas in 1924, when Miriam Wallace Ferguson won the election for governor of Texas, but her husband James E. Ferguson remained the de facto governor.
At first there was some doubt as to whether or not the Wallaces could pull of the plan. Lurleen was described as being shy in public and not having any interest in the workings of politics. One Alabama newspaper editor called her "the most unlikely candidate imaginable. It is as difficult to picture her in politics as to envision Helen Hayes butchering a hog." Lurleen herself said that "it never even crossed my mind that I'd ever enter politics." She also faced opposition from a number of formidable candidates, including two former governors of Alabama (John Malcolm Patterson and Jim Folsom), former congressman Carl Elliott, and Attorney General Richmond Flowers, Sr. But Alabama Democrats knew who they were really election, and Wallace made no secret of his wife's candidacy as his proxy.
After winning the nomination, her election wasn't a certainty. Barry Goldwater was attracting many southern states to the Republican cause, and many Southern voters were rejecting Democratic candidates because of Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legislation. Lurleen Wallace faced one-term Republican U.S. representative James D. Martin of Gadsden as her opponent. He had received national attention four years earlier when he mounted a serious challenge to incumbent Democratic U.S. senator J. Lister Hill.
The general election campaign focused on whether Wallace would be governor in her own right or a "caretaker." The plan was for her husband to serve as her "dollar-a-year-advisor" but it was understood that he would be the one making all the major decisions. She campaigned not in her own name but as "Mrs. George C. Wallace." Lurleen Wallace used the slogan "Two Governors, One Cause." In his memoirs, Wallace recalled that Lurleen was a good campaigner in her own right. He described his wife's ability to "charm crowds" and cast off criticisms of herself. He wrote, "I was immensely proud of her, and it didn't hurt a bit to take a back seat to her in vote-getting ability." He defended his decision to have her run as his proxy and claimed that she was not pressured into doing so. He wrote "She loved every minute of being governor the same way that Mrs. (Margaret Chase) Smith loves being senator."
Alabama voters loved the Wallace brand and they knew who they were really electing as Governor. The decision to run against Wallace heavily damaged the Alabama GOP. African-Americans were now eligible to vote since the passage of the Voting Rights Act a year earlier, but neither candidate openly sought support from the increasing number of African American voters, despite the fact that many African-Americans had been registered in the wake of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. George Wallace maintained his segregationist views by signing state legislation that nullified desegregation guidelines between Alabama cities and counties and the former United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Wallace said that the law would prevent the national government from sticking its nose into how Alabama ran its schools, even though by doing so this meant the forfeiture of federal funds. Lurleen Wallace supported her husband's views on the issue.
The northern media attempted to distort what was really occurring in Alabama politically. The New York Times predicted that Martin "not only has a chance to win the governorship, but at least for the moment must be rated as the favorite." Political writer Theodore H. Whit, predicted that Alabama would become the first former Confederate state to elect a Republican governor. But these reports did not match the reality on the ground. George Wallace's organization was insurmountable. U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond and former U.S. senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, campaigned on behalf of Martin.
At her general election campaign kickoff in Birmingham, Lurleen Wallace pledged to give voters "progress without compromise" and "accomplishment without surrender." She was open about the role her husband would play, saying, "George will continue to speak up and stand up for Alabama." It was also during this 1966 campaign that George Wallace made his famous statement: "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the two national parties."
Lurleen Wallace carried almost all Alabama counties except for two. She received 537,505 votes (63.4%) while Martin only received 262,943 votes (31%). The 1966 results emboldened George Wallace and his opposition to desegregation.
George Wallace eventually succeeded in getting the term limit repealed, and he would later serve three more terms, two of them consecutively. But in the meantime, Lurleen Wallace was inaugurated as Governor of Alabama on January 16, 1967. She stated that her husband would be her "No. 1 assistant".
Wallace's most notable independent action as governor was her attempt to increase appropriations for the Bryce Hospital and the Partlow State School, a residential institution for the developmentally disabled. She had visited both institutions in Tuscaloosa on her own initiative in February 1967 after reading a news story about overcrowding and poor staffing. She was moved by what she saw in their deplorable conditions.
Throughout the campaign, Lurleen Wallace kept a secret from voters. She had been secretly diagnosed with cancer in April of 1961, when her surgeon biopsied suspicious tissue that he noticed during the cesarean delivery of her last child. In Alabama's paternalistic society such as it was at the time, her physician told her husband the news, not her. George Wallace kept the news from her and as a result, she did not get appropriate follow-up care. When she saw a gynecologist for abnormal bleeding in 1965, his diagnosis of uterine cancer came as a complete shock to her. When one of her husband's staffers later informed her that George Wallace had discussed her cancer with him, but not her. Upon learning these things, she was understandably livid with her husband.
In spite of this, Lurleen Wallace agreed to keep the news of her cancer from the public and participated in a campaign of dissimulation and misdirection as she began radiation therapy in December 1965. This was followed by a hysterectomy in January 1966. Despite her ill health, she kept up an intense campaign schedule throughout 1966.
Early in her term as Governor, Wallace's condition began to worsen. In June 1967, an abdominal growth was found. During surgery on July 10, this proved to be an egg-sized malignancy on her colon. She had a second course of radiation therapy as a follow-up. In January 1968, after extensive testing, she informed her staff that she had a cancerous pelvic tumor which was pressing on the nerves of her back down through her right hip. She insisted that the news be kept from the public. Despite her prior surgeries on her uterus and colon and despite the radiation treatment, the cancer had spread.
Her last public appearance as governor was made at the 1967 Blue-Gray Football Classic. She also made a campaign appearance for her husband's presidential bid on the American Party ticket on January 11, 1968. Her illness was becoming much worse. Her pelvic tumor was removed in late February and this was followed by more surgery to treat an abdominal abscess. In late March 1968, she had surgery once again to dissolve a blood clot in her left lung. By April, the cancer was in her liver and lungs, and she weighed less than eighty pounds.
Her husband continued to give false reports to the media about his wife's condition. During his presidential campaign in April 1968, he told reporters that "she has won the fight" against cancer. He continued to make campaign stops nationwide during her last weeks of life, even as her doctors warned him she was in unstable condition. At her request, he cancelled a television appearance on May 6, when she was too ill to be moved back to the hospital.
Lurleen Wallace died in Montgomery, Alabama, at 12:34 a.m. May 7, 1968. Her husband and the rest of her family were present, including her parents. She was only 41 years of age. She lay in state in the Capitol building on May 8, and 21,000 mourners attended to view her silver casket. One of her last wishes was for a closed casket, but her husband insisted that her body be on view, with a glass bubble over the open part of the coffin. On the day of her funeral, May 9, all public and private schools, state offices closed, and most businesses were closed. She was interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomery.
After his wife's death, George Wallace had moved out of the governor's mansion and returned to a home that they had purchased in Montgomery in 1967. Their four children, ages 18, 16, and 6, were sent to live with family members and friends. Their eldest daughter had married and left home by this time. George Wallace had two subsequent marriages, both of which ended in divorce.
Wallace was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer, a former ally of her husband who now wanted to govern in his own right without Wallace's influence. He ran to retain the office in the 1970 election and was supported by President Richard Nixon. But George Wallace beat Brewer in the Democratic primary and returned as governor in January 1971, remaining in office for two consecutive terms. George Wallace also secured and served a fourth term from 1983 to 1987.
She was born Lurleen Brigham Burns on September 19, 1926. Her parents were Henry Burns and the former Estelle Burroughs. Lurleen was highly intelligent and graduated in 1942 from Tuscaloosa County High School at the age of fifteen. She then worked at Kresge's Five and Dime in Tuscaloosa, and it was there that she met George Wallace, at the time a member of the United States Army Air Corps. The couple married on May 22, 1943, when she was 16. Lurleen Wallace deferred embarking on a career of her own to care for her family. For the next two decades she focused on being a mother and a homemaker. The Wallaces had four children: two daughters Bobbi Jo (born in 1944), Peggy Sue (born 1950), then a son, George III (born 1951), and then their youngest daughter Janie Lee (born 1961).
It wasn't a happy marriage. By most accounts George Wallace was not a nice person. Besides being a rabid segregationist, he was also a terrible family man who neglected his family and who engaged in frequent extramarital affairs. Lurleen filed for divorce in the late 1950s, but withdrew her divorce petition after Wallace promised to be a better husband. By some accounts, he kept that promise and the couple had a better marriage for the rest of her life.
George Wallace was elected as Governor of Alabama in 1963. It would be the first of four terms he would serve nonconsecutively terms, but the only one that she would live to see. Wallace supported the policies of "Jim Crow" at a time when the Civil Rights Movement was taking place. He famously declared in his 1963 inaugural address that he stood for "segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever." But she did have her own goals as First Lady. She opened the first floor of the governor's mansion to the public seven days a week, and she refused to serve alcoholic beverages at official functions, much to the chagrin of her husband and his cronies.
In 1965, George Wallace was unsuccessful in his attempt to get the constitutional ban on his candidacy for re-election lifted. There is no doubt that it was his plan to have Lurleen would run for governor of the state but that George Wallace would be "the power behind the throne" and that he would be the one exercising the authority of the office behind the scenes. This strategy had been tried before in Texas in 1924, when Miriam Wallace Ferguson won the election for governor of Texas, but her husband James E. Ferguson remained the de facto governor.
At first there was some doubt as to whether or not the Wallaces could pull of the plan. Lurleen was described as being shy in public and not having any interest in the workings of politics. One Alabama newspaper editor called her "the most unlikely candidate imaginable. It is as difficult to picture her in politics as to envision Helen Hayes butchering a hog." Lurleen herself said that "it never even crossed my mind that I'd ever enter politics." She also faced opposition from a number of formidable candidates, including two former governors of Alabama (John Malcolm Patterson and Jim Folsom), former congressman Carl Elliott, and Attorney General Richmond Flowers, Sr. But Alabama Democrats knew who they were really election, and Wallace made no secret of his wife's candidacy as his proxy.
After winning the nomination, her election wasn't a certainty. Barry Goldwater was attracting many southern states to the Republican cause, and many Southern voters were rejecting Democratic candidates because of Lyndon Johnson's civil rights legislation. Lurleen Wallace faced one-term Republican U.S. representative James D. Martin of Gadsden as her opponent. He had received national attention four years earlier when he mounted a serious challenge to incumbent Democratic U.S. senator J. Lister Hill.
The general election campaign focused on whether Wallace would be governor in her own right or a "caretaker." The plan was for her husband to serve as her "dollar-a-year-advisor" but it was understood that he would be the one making all the major decisions. She campaigned not in her own name but as "Mrs. George C. Wallace." Lurleen Wallace used the slogan "Two Governors, One Cause." In his memoirs, Wallace recalled that Lurleen was a good campaigner in her own right. He described his wife's ability to "charm crowds" and cast off criticisms of herself. He wrote, "I was immensely proud of her, and it didn't hurt a bit to take a back seat to her in vote-getting ability." He defended his decision to have her run as his proxy and claimed that she was not pressured into doing so. He wrote "She loved every minute of being governor the same way that Mrs. (Margaret Chase) Smith loves being senator."
Alabama voters loved the Wallace brand and they knew who they were really electing as Governor. The decision to run against Wallace heavily damaged the Alabama GOP. African-Americans were now eligible to vote since the passage of the Voting Rights Act a year earlier, but neither candidate openly sought support from the increasing number of African American voters, despite the fact that many African-Americans had been registered in the wake of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. George Wallace maintained his segregationist views by signing state legislation that nullified desegregation guidelines between Alabama cities and counties and the former United States Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Wallace said that the law would prevent the national government from sticking its nose into how Alabama ran its schools, even though by doing so this meant the forfeiture of federal funds. Lurleen Wallace supported her husband's views on the issue.
The northern media attempted to distort what was really occurring in Alabama politically. The New York Times predicted that Martin "not only has a chance to win the governorship, but at least for the moment must be rated as the favorite." Political writer Theodore H. Whit, predicted that Alabama would become the first former Confederate state to elect a Republican governor. But these reports did not match the reality on the ground. George Wallace's organization was insurmountable. U.S. Senator Strom Thurmond and former U.S. senator Barry Goldwater, the 1964 Republican presidential nominee, campaigned on behalf of Martin.
At her general election campaign kickoff in Birmingham, Lurleen Wallace pledged to give voters "progress without compromise" and "accomplishment without surrender." She was open about the role her husband would play, saying, "George will continue to speak up and stand up for Alabama." It was also during this 1966 campaign that George Wallace made his famous statement: "There's not a dime's worth of difference between the two national parties."
Lurleen Wallace carried almost all Alabama counties except for two. She received 537,505 votes (63.4%) while Martin only received 262,943 votes (31%). The 1966 results emboldened George Wallace and his opposition to desegregation.
George Wallace eventually succeeded in getting the term limit repealed, and he would later serve three more terms, two of them consecutively. But in the meantime, Lurleen Wallace was inaugurated as Governor of Alabama on January 16, 1967. She stated that her husband would be her "No. 1 assistant".
Wallace's most notable independent action as governor was her attempt to increase appropriations for the Bryce Hospital and the Partlow State School, a residential institution for the developmentally disabled. She had visited both institutions in Tuscaloosa on her own initiative in February 1967 after reading a news story about overcrowding and poor staffing. She was moved by what she saw in their deplorable conditions.
Throughout the campaign, Lurleen Wallace kept a secret from voters. She had been secretly diagnosed with cancer in April of 1961, when her surgeon biopsied suspicious tissue that he noticed during the cesarean delivery of her last child. In Alabama's paternalistic society such as it was at the time, her physician told her husband the news, not her. George Wallace kept the news from her and as a result, she did not get appropriate follow-up care. When she saw a gynecologist for abnormal bleeding in 1965, his diagnosis of uterine cancer came as a complete shock to her. When one of her husband's staffers later informed her that George Wallace had discussed her cancer with him, but not her. Upon learning these things, she was understandably livid with her husband.
In spite of this, Lurleen Wallace agreed to keep the news of her cancer from the public and participated in a campaign of dissimulation and misdirection as she began radiation therapy in December 1965. This was followed by a hysterectomy in January 1966. Despite her ill health, she kept up an intense campaign schedule throughout 1966.
Early in her term as Governor, Wallace's condition began to worsen. In June 1967, an abdominal growth was found. During surgery on July 10, this proved to be an egg-sized malignancy on her colon. She had a second course of radiation therapy as a follow-up. In January 1968, after extensive testing, she informed her staff that she had a cancerous pelvic tumor which was pressing on the nerves of her back down through her right hip. She insisted that the news be kept from the public. Despite her prior surgeries on her uterus and colon and despite the radiation treatment, the cancer had spread.
Her last public appearance as governor was made at the 1967 Blue-Gray Football Classic. She also made a campaign appearance for her husband's presidential bid on the American Party ticket on January 11, 1968. Her illness was becoming much worse. Her pelvic tumor was removed in late February and this was followed by more surgery to treat an abdominal abscess. In late March 1968, she had surgery once again to dissolve a blood clot in her left lung. By April, the cancer was in her liver and lungs, and she weighed less than eighty pounds.
Her husband continued to give false reports to the media about his wife's condition. During his presidential campaign in April 1968, he told reporters that "she has won the fight" against cancer. He continued to make campaign stops nationwide during her last weeks of life, even as her doctors warned him she was in unstable condition. At her request, he cancelled a television appearance on May 6, when she was too ill to be moved back to the hospital.
Lurleen Wallace died in Montgomery, Alabama, at 12:34 a.m. May 7, 1968. Her husband and the rest of her family were present, including her parents. She was only 41 years of age. She lay in state in the Capitol building on May 8, and 21,000 mourners attended to view her silver casket. One of her last wishes was for a closed casket, but her husband insisted that her body be on view, with a glass bubble over the open part of the coffin. On the day of her funeral, May 9, all public and private schools, state offices closed, and most businesses were closed. She was interred at Greenwood Cemetery in Montgomery.
After his wife's death, George Wallace had moved out of the governor's mansion and returned to a home that they had purchased in Montgomery in 1967. Their four children, ages 18, 16, and 6, were sent to live with family members and friends. Their eldest daughter had married and left home by this time. George Wallace had two subsequent marriages, both of which ended in divorce.
Wallace was succeeded by Lieutenant Governor Albert Brewer, a former ally of her husband who now wanted to govern in his own right without Wallace's influence. He ran to retain the office in the 1970 election and was supported by President Richard Nixon. But George Wallace beat Brewer in the Democratic primary and returned as governor in January 1971, remaining in office for two consecutive terms. George Wallace also secured and served a fourth term from 1983 to 1987.