Wallace Draws Praise as Man Who Had Courage to Change

Former Gov. George C. Wallace, the snarling, fist-shaking segregationist of the 1960s who would later preach racial cooperation, was eulogized Wednesday as a man who had “the courage to change.”

Among the 25,000 people police estimated visited the state Capitol rotunda to see Wallace in his casket Wednesday and Tuesday were blacks and whites from all levels of society, precisely the kind of constituency Wallace sought in the end.

Wallace died Sunday at 79 after a blood infection.

Alabama’s top state government and congressional officials, offering prayers and reminiscences, held a memorial service for the former governor in the state House chamber where the Confederacy was organized in 1861.

“He had the courage to change,” Gov. Forrest “Fob” James Jr., said. “He had a message . . . the message of reconciliation.”

The former governor was buried Wednesday next to his first wife, Lurleen, at a Montgomery cemetery.

Wallace was first elected governor in 1962. In 1963, he declared, “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” and tried to block the enrollment of two black students at the University of Alabama with his “stand in the schoolhouse door.”

He was a serious contender for the White House in 1968 and 1972, championing “the little man” against big government and elitists. A would-be assassin’s bullet paralyzed him in 1972.

“We have to learn to forgive and forget,” said Reedie Russell, a black worker at a Montgomery Air Force base who arrived in the Capitol rotunda. “This was history being laid to rest.”