Wednesday, July 29, 2020

the last book I ever read (The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan, excerpt eight)

from The Lynching: The Epic Courtroom Battle That Brought Down the Klan by Laurence Leamer:

On the frigid inaugural morning in January 1963, Wallace stood with a silk top hat in his hand as he proudly watched 15,000 Alabamans marching up Dexter Avenue. Not a single black person paraded past him. Nor was a single black person pictured in the 296-page official inaugural program. The tens of thousands of men and women who braved the twenty-five-degree weather to hear the inaugural address were also exclusively white. The most famous passage in the thirty-six-minute speech became as much an anthem of resistance as the song “Dixie.”

“I draw the line in the dust,” Wallace said, “and toss the gauntlet before the feet of tyranny . . . and I say . . . segregation now . . . segregation tomorrow . . . and segregation forever.”



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