George Wallace: Settin’ The Woods on Fire (2000)
George Wallace: Settin’ The Woods on Fire (2000) This PBS documentary about George Wallace might seem an unusual choice for the labor section. It qualified because the complicated development of working-class politics, the impact of race, and the lure of social mobility are fundamental topics for any study of the American working-class.
The production provides a marvelous depiction of the shift in political thinking in the southern United States, personified by this obscure and ambitious Alabama judge. Wallace once supported the values of the New Deal and treated blacks in his courtroom with respect. As governor, he improved schools and textbooks and his presidential platform in 1968 included increases in Social Security and Medicare.
Compelling newsreel footage of Wallace’s campaigns and personal life demonstrate his sympathies for workers and his enormous appeal, even in northern union halls. In his farewell speech on April 2, 1986, Wallace remarked: “And I'm thinking about the days of the Depression of the thirty-two, because I am a child of the Depression. I saw the old South because I was a part of it. I smelled and felt and was part of the poverty of that particular era.”
The documentary follows Wallace’s life from its hardscrabble beginnings through his early political campaigns, featuring his marriage to Lurleen Burns—who took his place as governor of Alabama in 1966 when term limits prohibited another campaign— to the last years of his life when he sat, smoking cigars, in a wheelchair.
Out of sheer ambition, however, Wallace made a deal with the devil in the late 1950’s, embracing the worst elements of racism to run for governor of Alabama. He metaphorically paid off the deal with a life of paralysis after the assassination attempt in 1972. In the late 1970’s Wallace, always shrewd at sensing political changes, became born-again, and, not surprisingly, was elected governor again in 1983 as a proponent of integration.
The newsreels capture some of the most important moments of U.S history in the 60’s, as Wallace blocks the schoolhouse door, proclaiming “segregation now, segregation forever,” in a speech ghostwritten by Asa Carter, a Klansman and Nazi who receives a description in the movie. Wallace was both funny and feisty when he campaigned, disguising his racism behind appeals for “law-and-order” or states rights. He cleverly played to workers and the work ethic, taunting hecklers with four- letters words like S-O-A-P and W-O-R-K. The same themes were used effectively by Ronald Reagan, splitting the working class on the fault line of race for decades, so Wallace is certainly worthy of investigation.
The diverse commentators in the documentary range from long-time opponents of Wallace, like Georgia Congressman John Lewis (a parallel example of social mobility) to Wallace’s former bag man and political confidante, Seymore Trammel. There is also
emotional commentary from his children, his ex-wife Cornelia and from reporters who covered the civil rights movement.
Anyone planning on showing this documentary can direct students to an enormous PBS web site, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/wallace/filmmore/index.html which includes a timeline, transcripts of some of Wallace’s important speeches, and a history of characters in the documentary.
Bill Barry Community College of Baltimore County bbarry@ccbcmd.edu
