Excerpt from his inaugural speech, delivered January 14, 1963
Reprinted from Our Nation's Archive.
Published in 1999.

"We invite the Negro citizen of Alabama to work with us from his separate racial station to grow in individual freedom and enrichment.…"

George Corley Wallace (1919–1998) made himself a national symbol of racism in the 1960s. During his five-year tenure as an Alabama judge starting in 1953, he established a reputation as an opponent of all civil rights legislation.

Born on August 25, 1919, the son of a cotton farmer in rural Clio, Alabama, George Corley Wallace spent most of his life as an "underdog," someone who was unlikely to succeed. However, he worked hard from an early age...