George Wallace—Persistent Presence

Southern state governments in the late 1950s and early 1960s underwent a breakdown of democracy as serious and dangerous as Watergate. The same terrible principle that motivated Watergate controlled most of the region’s state houses. In reaction to the 1954 Supreme Court school desegregation decision, segregationists took over, and they perceived their enemies, blacks and whites who were for integration, as in a war. These enemies had to be destroyed by whatever means necessary, and there were to be no restraints, least of all the United States Constitution.

Those segregationist governors were a motley crew, ranging from dumb old Ross Barnett of Mississippi to roguish Marvin Griffin of Georgia. Some of them believed in what ...