George Wallace

About

George Corley Wallace Jr. (August 25, 1919 – September 13, 1998) was an American politician and lawyer who was the 45th and longest-serving governor of Alabama (1963–1967; 1971–1979; 1983–1987), and the longest-serving governor from the Democratic Party. Wallace unsuccessfully sought the presidential nomination as a Democrat three times, and once with the American Independent Party, in which he carried five states in the 1968 presidential election, resulting in a rare moment not seen since the 1948 presidential election where a third party managed to secure electoral seats independent of the de-facto ‘two party system’ of United States.
Born in Clio, Alabama, Wallace was fascinated with politics from age ten. In 1935, he won a contest to serve as a page in the Alabama Senate, and confidently predicted that he would one day be governor. After earning a Bachelor of Laws at the University of Alabama School of Law, he served in the United States Army Air Force during World War II. After the war, he won election to the Alabama House of Representatives, and served as a state judge. Wallace first sought the Democratic nomination in the 1958 Alabama gubernatorial election. Initially a moderate…