George Wallace’s daughter: ‘Unfortunately it does look like the ‘60s now’
Peggy Wallace Kennedy went to political rallies with her dad – George Wallace – as he ran for president in the ‘60s and ‘70s.
She saw hate and anger that a child should not have to see. She felt a bitterness she did not at the time comprehend.
She didn’t know why protesters in the northeast threw ink on her new beige dress outside one of those rallies.
But then, she didn’t understand the virulence of her father’s most devoted supporters, either, or his desire to keep black people from attending the University of Alabama, or the mindless rage that drove the crowds to violence.
She understands now. She understands all too well. Her father was wrong.
“We cannot go backward,” she told a group of teachers at the Birmingham Public Library last week. “We have to go forward.”
Wallace Kennedy has written a book – “The Broken Road: George Wallace and a Daughter’s Journey to Reconciliation” – that is scheduled for release later this year. But her words have seldom seemed more relevant than they are now, as the president’s tweets enflame the racists, as his words echo the populist demagoguery of Wallace himself, as crowds jeer at our differences. [Continue reading…]