From George Wallace to Bubba Wallace (op-ed)

When George Wallace, the new governor of Alabama, stood at a podium to give his inaugural address, the date was January 14, 1963.  It was nine years after the US Supreme Court declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional.  It was one year after President John F. Kennedy used federal force to integrate the University of Mississippi making James Meredith their first black student.  During George Wallace’s inaugural address, he announced Alabama would not submit to federal intervention.  Then he said the infamous phrase, “I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny and I say, segregation now, segregation tomorrow, and segregation forever.”

Wallace’s speech was a battle cry.

In 1963 Medgar Evers, a NAACP field secretary, was murdered by a white supremacist in Mississippi, the KKK bombed a black church killing 4 little girls in Alabama, and President Kennedy was assassinated.  Three years later, after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, James Meredith decided to lead a “march against fear” through the state of Mississippi to encourage blacks to register to vote.  Two days into the march Meredith was shot and wounded by a white supremacist.  But the shooting didn’t stop the march.  The major civil rights organizations picked up Meredith’s mantle and continued the “march against fear” into the heart of Mississippi.

Now, in 2020, 26-year-old, Bubba Wallace, NASCAR’s only black driver, was inspired by the Black Lives Matter protests following the police killing of George Floyd.  Wallace insisted that NASCAR ban the confederate flag from its events to demonstrate its commitment to fighting racism.  NASCAR complied and stated the confederate flag, “runs contrary to our commitment to providing an inclusive environment.”  Wallace then wore an ‘I can’t breathe’ T-shirt to one race and drove a ‘Black Lives Matter” car in another.

Wallace’s mother couldn’t believe it.  

She humorously told the New York Times, “I said, “Wait a minute! Is this my son? The one who doesn’t care about anything but getting in the car and driving?’ I’m tripping that he’s gone from being a race car driver to a daggone activist.  Who does that? Not Bubba.”   Wallace told the New York Times, for years he focused solely on racing and didn’t try to “disturb the culture of a sport whose fan base is predominately white and conservative.”   Wallace also said, “I never saw color and never thought I was treated differently because I was black.”  He explained when he was thirteen, he was called a racial slur by a driver’s parent and a race official.  Wallace’s mother told him those were ignorant people and he was in a white man’s sport and not everything was going to be easy.

 As Wallace gain notoriety as the latest sports figure to become an anti-racist activist a noose, a symbol of lynching, was found in Wallace’s garage stall.  Wallace’s mother told him, “They are just trying to scare you.”  At the next race, all the other drivers and their crewmen walked with Wallace as he pushed his car into position on the track.  All the other drivers and crewmen stood with Wallace as the National anthem played.  It was a show of solidarity.  It was there march against fear.

Except there was nothing to fear.  Wallace wasn’t a target of any hate crime.  According to the FBI probe the “noose” was nothing but the garage door pull rope.

When the “noose” was first discovered Wallace said it was a painful reminder of how much further we have to go as a society. 

But the whole situation actually revealed how far society has come from the times of George Wallace.

First published in the New Pittsburgh Courier 7/1/2020